Number 64, September 11, 1998 Health Sciences Library Introduces...
Evidence Based Medicine Resources
The Health Sciences Library is pleased to announce the newest additions to our ever-expanding resources: The Cochrane Library of Databases and Ovid’s Evidence Based Medicine Reviews Collection, which are available through the Library Home Page.
I. The Cochrane Library of Databases is located under Electronic Resources on the library’s home page, http://www.upstate.edu/library/. It consists of four major databases:
1. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviewspublished by Update Software for the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization, dedicated to preparing, maintaining and promoting the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions. The reviews are presented in two sections:
A. Complete reviews - includes the full text of the regularly updated systematic reviews prepared and maintained by Collaborative Review Groups. In order to view tables and graphs properly, MetaView must be downloaded first. At the first screen click on MetaView , before clicking on Enter, for directions.
B. Protocols - are reviews in progress. The section provides the introduction, objectives, materials and methods for reviews currently being prepared. Many also have a short bibliography.
2. Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness contains summaries and assessments of systematic reviews which meet the Cochrane Collaboration standards/criteria, but were not created specifically under the auspices of the Collaboration. Abstracts of reviews produced by the American College of Physicians Journal Club up to 1995 are also in included.
3. Cochrane Controlled Trials Register (CCTR) is a list of references to controlled trials in health care and contains those records which have been judged to meet the necessary quality criteria. These are likely to be reports of randomized or quasi-randomized trials. The goal is to create a register which will be the best source of information on trials available anywhere.
4. Cochrane Review Methodology Databaseis a bibliography of empirical studies of methods used in reviews.The systematic reviews are indexed with the National Library of Medicine’s Medical Subject Headings. The other databases are searchable by using keywords. The Library has created a user’s guide which is also available on the web.
II. Ovid's Evidence-Based Medicine Reviews (EBMR) is the latest addition by OVID Inc. to its smorgasbord of databases. EBMR combines two sources of evidence based information:
1. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.This is the same database which is contained in the Cochrane Library, with the information reformatted for the Ovid system. /p>
2. The Best Evidence, is a database that contains the ACP Journal Club from the American College of Physicians (ACP) and Evidence-Based Medicine from ACP and BMJ Publishing. The editors of Best Evidence screen the top clinical journals to identify studies that are methodologically sound and clinically relevant. They then write a fuller abstract of the chosen articles and provide a commentary on the value of the article for clinical practice
About the Databases
Both the Cochrane Collaboration and the ACP create reviews of current medical research by surveying the medical literature for articles that are clinically relevant and methodologically sound and by reporting the analysis in a clear and concise way. The Cochrane Database contains topic reviews created from systematic study of hundreds of journal articles, while Best Evidence offers abstracts and commentary on important, individual journal articles. Using these sources, clinicians can quickly understand and apply to their practice important changes in medical knowledge, without having to read and synthesize for themselves thousands of journal articles.
Ovid Implementation Features
Ovid enhances the value of these resources by bringing them alive in Ovid's trademark graphical user interface and using Ovid's sophisticated search software. Features include:
* EBM limit in Medline, allowing users to restrict search results to articles which meet Evidence Based criteria
* Links from Medline to Evidence Based Medicine Reviews
* Links from Evidence Based Medicine Reviews to Ovid's collection of full text journal articles
* Expert topic searches, allowing users to recreate the searches designed by member of the Cochrane Collaboration in order to get the latest Medline information on a topic.
Access to EBM for HSC personnel is available by logging on to the Library’s Homepage and clicking on the EBM Link. No username or password is required. Use of EBM is restricted to students, faculty and staff of the SUNY Upstate Medical University, therefore it is available only from the HSCedu (139.127.xxx. xxx) domain. If you attempt to connect from a computer outside of our domain, i.e. a commercial vendor, you will be rejected.
For further information, please call the Reference Department at 464-4581.
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Last Updated: November 12,1998
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