Wikipedia is a top destination for healthcare professionals and consumers to search for medical information. Now, Wikipedia healthcare editors can enhance their entries on the popular Internet encyclopedia and be confident in their accuracy thanks to a collaboration with EBSCO Health, the creators of DynaMed Plus.
Wikipedia’s top healthcare editors have complimentary access to DynaMed Plus, a cross-platform, evidence-based clinical reference solution, to assist in content generation, research and verification of information on pages dedicated to medicine, pharmacology, public health, and other related topics. Currently, there are more than 155,000 medical articles posted to Wikipedia, which are supported by 950,000+ references. Healthcare content alone was viewed more than 4.88 billion times in 2013. By having access to DynaMed Plus, Wikipedia is ensuring that the information being developed is accurate and based on real world clinical evidence.
“Wikipedia is one of, if not the, most viewed online medical resource for both patients and healthcare providers. This makes it crucial that its authorship be pristine and its content reliable,” said James Heilman, MD, Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of British Columbia. “Access to DynaMed Plus not only strengthens the healthcare content being produced but also gives readers confidence knowing the information contained in Wikipedia healthcare entries is coming from a trusted source.”
DynaMed Plus is a point-of-care, evidence-based clinical reference tool available on laptops, and mobile devices running iOS and Android. It includes thousands of topics covering diseases, conditions, drugs and more, and is supplemented with 4,000 full color images. DynaMed Plus is optimized for the way a physician works, provides the quickest time-to-answer, and delivers the most current information with validity, relevance and convenience. DynaMed Plus clinical editors monitor more than 500 medical journals on a daily basis, and evaluate each article for clinical relevance and scientific validity. The new evidence is then integrated with existing DynaMed Plus content, and overall conclusions are changed as appropriate, representing a synthesis of the best available evidence.
“I personally update and edit hundreds of entries on Wikipedia each year,” said Emily Temple-Wood, Wikipedian-in-Residence at the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and Board Member of WikiProject Med Foundation. “Being able to consult DynaMed Plus allows me to research trusted, evidence-based clinical content to produce relevant and accurate material that our readers have come to rely on.”
Up to 300 complimentary accounts to DynaMed Plus will be granted to Wikipedia editors through the partnership. Healthcare editors who have held an account with Wikipedia for more than a year with a minimum of 1,000 edits can find further information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:DynaMed
