Comparative Effectiveness, 2011

DynaMed

June 2011

DynaMed, an online clinical reference tool for health care professionals, has used AHRQ's resources for years. More recently, the company also began using AHRQ's Effective Health Care (EHC) Program reviews after learning about the resources from a Knowledge Transfer project, "Comparative Effectiveness Outreach Among Clinicians and Pharmacists." As a result, hundreds of thousands of clinicians now access EHC resources from their mobile devices or through electronic medical records in facilities to make real-time clinical decisions for patients at the point of care.

After Larisa Lucas, MD, DynaMed Senior Deputy Editor, learned about AHRQ's resources, DynaMed added references to five EHC reviews in its online summaries. When users access an online clinical summary that references or posts AHRQ's review findings, they see a direct link to the AHRQ EHC review. DynaMed also actively promotes AHRQ's resources in its Weekly Update to subscribers.

Lucas notes that patient-centered outcomes research "is helpful for clinicians at the individual level, for hospitals developing formularies, and for policymakers drafting protocols, all of whom are DynaMed users. Not only is it easy for clinicians to use DynaMed to find summaries of evidence, but by placing AHRQ's patient-centered outcomes research on the Web site, other DynaMed subscribers—such as librarians and policymakers—are also now learning about it."

DynaMed editors are also pleased that AHRQ's comparative effectiveness reviews are also published in the Annals of Internal Medicine—traditionally one of DynaMed's most prolific sources of clinical evidence.

Hospitals in more than 175 countries use DynaMed's online tool to reach clinicians. In addition to hospitals and other health care facilities, educators and students at academic sites subscribe to this reference tool to gain convenient access to evidence-based information.

EHC guides included in DynaMed's online clinical summaries are as follows: "Comparative Effectiveness of Radiofrequency Catheter Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation"; "Comparative Effectiveness of Core-Needle and Open Surgical Biopsy for the Diagnosis of Breast Lesions"; "Comparative Effectiveness of Angiotensin Converting Enzyme Inhibitors or Angiotensin II Receptor Blockers Added to Standard Medical Therapy for Treating Stable Ischemic Heart Disease"; "Comparative Effectiveness of Medications to Reduce Risk of Primary Breast Cancer in Women"; and "Therapeutic Management, Delivery, and Postpartum Risk Assessment and Screening in Gestational Diabetes."

AHRQ's EHC guides are available at http://www.effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/index.cfm.

Knowledge Transfer Case Study Identifier: KT-COE-65
AHRQ-Product: Effective Health Care Program
Topic(s): Diabetes, Cardiac, Cancer
Scope: National/International

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