Continuing the Library’s new series of monthly promotions – Library Loves – this February we are taking a closer look at Point of Care Resources – what they are, and what’s available via St George’s Library.
Content
Introduction to Point of Care Resources
Evidence Based Healthcare
DynaMed Plus
BMJ Best Practice
BMJ Clinical Evidence
Pop up library and upcoming training sessions
Introduction to Point of Care Resources
Point of Care Resources refers to a range of resources that are designed to make the latest research and guidance available to healthcare staff/students at the ‘Point of Care’ in order to support their clinical decision making, and enable the practice of Evidence Based Healthcare.
Point of Care in this context simply means any location that is in the vicinity of patient treatment – from the patient’s own home, to the GP’s consulting room or the hospital bedside.
What is Evidence Based Healthcare?
Evidence Based Healthcare (EBH), also referred to as Evidence Based Medicine (EBM), is the practice of applying high quality, up to date evidence in the process of clinical decision making, alongside the expertise and experience of the healthcare practitioner and the needs of the patient, enabling the most appropriate course of treatment to be identified. Clinical Evidence, one of the resources we will look at in more detail below, includes an excellent introduction to Evidence Based Medicine in their Learn EBM section. There is also an Evidence Based Healthcare section on our Library website, where you can find more information.
Point of Care Resources at St George’s:
DynaMed Plus – available to NHS staff
DynaMed Plus is an evidence-based clinical decision support tool. It covers over 3,400 clinical topics, reviewed by doctors, and provides diagnostic information as well as evidence-graded treatment recommendations. Each summary is split into easy to navigate sections, and many summaries will provide external links to supporting webpages and articles, displaying the abstract or full-text article where available. Content is updated daily and users can opt-in to receive alerts on the latest updates in their specialties. The topic summaries provide links to relevant BNF entries, NICE guidelines, Micromedex Drug Content, images and graphics.
Device information: The website is device responsive so can be used in the web browser of any desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile provided you are connected to the internet. There are also DynaMed Plus apps for Android and Apple iOS (iPhone and iPad) – there is more information about the DynaMed Plus apps in our Guide to Mobile Resources Blog.
Access: You can access DynaMed Plus via the following 3 easy routes:
- Via NHS OpenAthens (Links are also available from the library’s database page)
- Under Clinical Applications on the hospital intranet – (no OpenAthens login required)
- Via the DynaMed Plus mobile app (detailed download instructions can be found in this feature from our Guide to Mobile Resources Blog).
BMJ Best Practice – available to users with a SGUL username and password
BMJ Best Practice describes itself as ‘your instant second opinion’, bringing together the latest evidence, guidelines and expert opinion on over 900 topics to support your decision making. Topics are arranged in a standardised way including overview, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up sections to mirror the structure of a patient consultation. Each topic also includes a resources section where you can view a full list of references with links to the abstract or fulltext where available, online resources, images and patient information leaflets to support the idea of shared decision making.
Device information: The website is device responsive so can be used in the web browser of any desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile provided you are connected to the internet. There are also BMJ Best Practice Apps for Android and Apple iOS (iPhone and iPad) – there is more information about the BMJ Best Practice app in our Guide to Mobile Resources Blog.
Access: Use the relevant links in the BMJ Best Practice entry on our databases page.
BMJ Clinical Evidence – available to all users
The BMJ Clinical Evidence team carry out systematic reviews of the evidence available on each topic, which is then presented in various summarised ways to make the findings easy to access and interpret in relation to clinical scenarios. Each topic includes an overview that also highlights any significant developments since the last review was published, background which includes the definitions of terms and methodology for the review, links to relevant patient information, guidelines and references. However, the key features of Clinical Evidence are the interventions tables and the GRADE tables; interventions tables rank interventions on a scale to indicate how likely they are to be beneficial, while GRADE tables use GRADE (a system developed by the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations Working Group) to assess the quality and strength of the evidence available for key interventions.
Device information: The website is device responsive so can be used in the web browser of any desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile provided you are connected to the internet. There are currently no apps available for this resource.
Access: Use the relevant links in the Clinical Evidence entry on our databases page.
Find out more
Visit our Pop Up Library – Tues 23 Feb 12-2pm
Outside Ingredients canteen, 1st Floor Lanesborough Wing
We will be showcasing these Point of Care Resources, alongside the rest of the Library’s services and resources.
Evidence Based Healthcare Resources training session – Tues 23 Feb 3-4.30pm
Interested in learning more about Evidence Based Healthcare?
Book a place on our EBH training session.
View the full details of the course on our website
Email: liblearn@sgul.ac.uk to book your place
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