Now available to all educational institutions, hospitals, and clinical settings in the Texas Medical Center, DynaMed is a clinical reference tool designed for use primarily at the 'point-of-care', providing clinically-organized summaries for nearly 2,000 topics. DynaMed can also be integrated with the EMR.
What Is DynaMed?
DynaMed is a clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other health care professionals for use primarily at the 'point-of-care'. DynaMed is updated daily and monitors the content of over 500 medical journals and systematic evidence review databases directly and indirectly by using many journal review services. Each publication is reviewed cover-to-cover, and each article is evaluated for clinical relevance and scientific validity. The new evidence is then integrated with existing content, and overall conclusions are changed as appropriate, representing a synthesis of the best available evidence.
Why is DynaMed Needed in Hospitals?
- Using the "best available evidence" for clinical decision-making improves health outcomes and reduces health care costs
- Clinicians may turn to textbooks and online resources that offer substantial breadth, but these resources do not always use the best available evidence
- Physicians and other health care professionals need a resource where they can reliably answer most questions quickly and accurately and get answers with the best available evidence
Why is DynaMed needed in medical schools and other health sciences educational institutions?
Although DynaMed is designed for use at the point-of-care, the research value of the nearly 2,000 clinical topics in the database is a valuable asset to medical schools for teachers and students. DynaMed is a powerful tool for teaching the value of clinical information resources. Medical students gain an understanding of not only the clinical context of current evidence, but also how to quickly access such information for future practice. And, as
students engage in more clinical activities, DynaMed may be utilized more traditionally as a resource for validating and changing clinical decisions in their clinical rotation. Pre-Doctoral faculty who teach information management or orient students to evidence-based medicine will find DynaMed ideal.
Features of DynaMed
Easy Navigation
DynaMed provides clinically-practical navigation options for health care professionals to locate the best available evidence.
Browse Topics Alphabetically
The quickest way to locate a topic of interest - users simply browse an A-Z listing - or type the first few letters of the topic of interest to quickly jump to the appropriate item.
Browse Topics by Category
For users who do not know the name of a specific topic, DynaMed offers the ability to search categorically. As such, users may focus on a specific area of medicine, and further drill down to locate the particular item of interest.
Full Text Search
DynaMed allows for full text searching whereby users enter search terms. This searching supports Boolean operators and wildcards, and presents results ranked by relevance.
Cross-Linking
In order to make navigation as intuitive as possible, DynaMed offers internal cross-links that can take the user to related topics with a single click (e.g. to view extensive information about anti-hypertensive medications when viewing hypertension, or to view related diseases listed in the differential diagnosis).
Please contact Leah Krevit, Associate Director for Collections Management (leah.krevit@exch.library.tmc.edu, 713.799.7126), for more information about this new resource.
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