Clin-eguide (Wolters-Kluwer Ovid)

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Introduction

See also Point of care decision-making tools - Overview

Clin-eguide™ was created by Wolters Kluwer International Health and Science Group, and is made available through OVID. It is aimed at healthcare professionals, i.e. clinicians, information systems professionals, and health care administrators. Clineguide provides treatment recommendations, based on evidence from the journal literature, and accounts for the cost-effectiveness of treatments. Recommendations are linked to citations in the literature. Clin-eguide™ provides access to a range of leading sources of drug information and peer-reviewed evidence-based medicine:

• Evidence-based diagnosis & treatment guidelines
• 5-Minute clinical suite
• Ovid MEDLINE®
• Drug facts & comparisons
• A to Z drug facts
• Review of natural products
• MedFacts (English & Spanish patient handouts)
• National Guideline Clearinghouse http://www.guidelines.gov
• McKesson Patient Handouts (English and Spanish patient handouts)

Disease summary overview

Clin-eguide™ is divided into 3 sections: 1) Disease, 2) Drug choices and 3) Quick drugs, which are accessed from three prominent buttons on the main page. After clicking on the Disease button, the user will find a list of disease names. A hyperlinked alphabet allows the user to quickly jump to the subset of diseases starting with a particular letter. Additional information about the patient is requested, eg. Adult vs. child. An example disease module was found to contain the following subheadings:

• Management Overview
• Disease Characteristics
• Definitions
• Epidemiology
• Etiology/pathogenesis
• Risk factors
• Prognosis
• Diagnosis
• Diagnosis Guidelines
• Clinical Presentation
• Diagnostic Tests
• Severity Assessment
• Differential Diagnosis
• Therapy
• Treatment Guidelines
• Surgical therapy
• Complications
• Complicating Factors

Usefulness

Clin-eguide™ is written by clinicians, drug information and clinical pharmacists. It is regularly reviewed by academic and clinical experts in medicine, nursing and allied health. In its promotional materials, Clin-eguide™ is said to be updated monthly. It does plan to go to bimonthly updating in the future.

Place in therapy

• Contraindications
• Cautions
• Drug interactions
• Dosage & administration
• Plus

Risks & warnings

• Adverse drug reactions
• Pregnancy category
• Lactation
• Patient advice

The Quick Drugs button leads the user to the same content as the Drug Choices button, minus the “Place in Therapy” information.

Usefulness

Clin-eguide™ is written by clinicians, drug information and clinical pharmacists. It is regularly reviewed by academic and clinical experts in medicine, nursing and allied health. In its promotional materials, Clin-eguide™ is said to be updated monthly. It does plan to go to bimonthly updating in the future.

EBM tools

• Evidence-based guidelines
• 5-minute Consult Database
• OvidSP Medline
• Nursing considerations for over 2000 diseases
• MedCalc 3000 clinical calculators
• The Formulary Monograph Service
• Trissel’s IV-Chek
• ToxFacts Toxicology Treatment Guidelines

This new product has over 900 topics covering 270 medical conditions. As a unique clinical decision support system designed to meet the needs of clinicians, Clin-guide provides structured diagnostic, management and treatment recommendations, referenced to the primary literature. Clin-eguide employs a rigorous EBM approach to content creation and maintenance, so that all treatment guidance is based on the best research evidence. A broad coverage of medical topics and disease states is provided, with particular emphasis on areas where significant controversy exists, practice variation is high, or standards of practice have not fully incorporated recent strong evidence.

Other features

The EBM approach is evident in Clin-eguide content by:

• Referencing all primary literature sources.
• Displaying strength of evidence grades next to recommendations.
• Including Number Needed to Treat (NNT) tables, where appropriate.
• Providing EBM Insights - alerts that highlight specific clinical issues.

References