Feb 15, 2009 - Flash player is needed to view the videos. Grand Rounds Lectures are audio files that have continuing medical education credits. Other tabs.
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Advisor Reviews––Standard Review
AccessMedicine Date of Review: February 15, 2009 Composite Score:
HHH 3/4
Pricing Options AccessMedicine offers three kinds of subscription rates: individual, institutional, and pay per view. Individuals can subscribe to all the resources in AccessMedicine for $695 a year. They can also subscribe to individual resources, for which prices range from $75 to $345 a year. A free, 30-day trial is available for institutions. Institutional rates, consortia subscription information, and discount information can be obtained by contacting an AccessMedicine sales representative at the Web site . Although it appears that AccessMedicine will work with libraries on subscriptions and consider discounts, the Web site does not share this information. Pay-per-view access is available for 24 hours for $29.95 or 48 hours for $49.95.
Product Description AccessMedicine is an online medical resource from McGraw-Hill. This publisher produces several collections of study guides for medical students and residents and also publishes major medical textbooks. AccessMedicine is geared towards medical students, physicians, researchers, and residents; it offers mostly electronic versions of McGraw Hill’s print collection pertaining to medicine. AccessMedicine also has related products such as AccessSurgery, Access Pharmacy, AccessEmergency Medicine, and Harrison’s Practice. The AccessMedicine home page has several tabs featuring its content. Below the tabs is the search box. On the left side of the screen is a large box that features links to some of AccessMedicine’s content, including the image of the day and video of the month. The box has three tabs: Features (the default view), Textbooks, and Advanced Search. AccessMedicine updates and the latest systematic reviews in the news are located on the right side. Links to an A-Z Index, Subscriptions, and Help are available on the upper right side of the screen. Content is updated daily by a team of physicians and researchers. The Textbook tab contains two sections: the Clinical Library and Lange Educational Library. The Clinical Library contains major textbooks in medicine such as Harrison’s, Hurst’s The Heart, and the latest Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment. Textbooks can be browsed by chapter then by chapter sections. Some chapters list the date of the most recent update. A few of the books have chapters available exclusively online. The Lange Educational Library offers full-text editions of McGraw Hill books in the basic and clinical sciences. There is also a free self-assessment tool called USMLEasy Lite. Exams through this tool can be customized by discipline, organ system, or subspecialty. USMLE Step 1 and Step 3 exams are available while Step 2 CK will be added this spring. The Lange Educational Library also has
Reviewed by: Rebecca Raszewski Library of the Health Sciences University of Illinois at Chicago 1750 West Polk Street Chicago, IL 60612
fifty case files available from the Lange Case Files books. McGraw Hill publications on primary care guidelines and diagnostic tests have their own tabs. An images tab has images from the books available in AccessMedicine. AccessMedicine also includes content not based on McGraw Hill books. The Drugs tab has separate sections on generics, trade names, drug classes, and patient handouts. Diagnosaurus (under the DDx tab) is a differential diagnosis tool that allows users to search over 1,000 diagnoses by symptoms, disease, and organ system. The Video and Audio tab has videos organized by body system; a QuickTime or Flash player is needed to view the videos. Grand Rounds Lectures are audio files that have continuing medical education credits. Other tabs include Quick Answers (for expert information on the diagnosis and management of a particular topic), News (from the Center for the Advancement of Health), and Patient Ed (with customizable patient education handouts from the journal, Postgraduate Medicine). AccessMedicine does not include any journal citations except those found in the books’ references. Searches of content can be done within specific sections in AccessMedicine or throughout the entire interface. A Search for one topic brings up a section on the left side of the screen that presents related subtopics. The results mostly come from books, Diagnosaurus, or the Quick Answers section, and will indicate if the content has been updated or if it is geared towards a patient. A separate link is available for viewing results of images, video, and audio. The Advanced Search allows users to select more options, such as individual titles. To search with Boolean logic, the full-text search link must be selected. Clicking the Enable Autosuggest link brings up additional suggested terms below the search box. Users can also browse an alphabetical listing of topics covered, a feature that is available in most of the tabs or a separate index of AccessMedicine’s content. AccessMedicine users can create an account so they can save searches, bookmark their favorite sections, or save up to 100 images. Users can print out AccessMedicine’s content, including entire book chapters. AccessMedicine updates can be delivered daily to an RSS reader. Weekly podcasts can be downloaded onto MP3 players or computers; subscriptions are available through iTunes. Only certain content can be e-mailed, bookmarked, or downloaded onto a PDA. AccessMedicine also has a special page for librarians, which is available through a link on the AccessMedicine home page. It updates librarians on the latest content, which includes a newsletter. This Web site also has information on MARC records and marketing materials. Librarians can log in with their subscription’s account to view usage statistics or update the account. There is also a product demos’ schedule and links to additional McGraw Hill products.
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Advisor Reviews / The Charleston Advisor / April 2009
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AccessMedicine Review Scores Composite: HHH 3/4 The maximum number of stars in each category is 5.
Content:
HHHHH
From study guides and textbooks to videos and podcasts, AccessMedicine offers a variety of content appropriate for a medical audience in many formats.
Searchability:
HHHH
AccessMedicine’s search engine does not rely on matching exact words but focuses instead on words’ meaning so it can pick up similar content. The content is “completely integrated and connected by these topic-based medical language tags that are compliant with the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS), developed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM).”4 Users will have to click on a link to enable Boolean searching instead of being able to search for everything through one search engine. Search results and related suggestions are well displayed on the screen.
Pricing Options:
HHH
AccessMedicine offers several pricing options for individuals, libraries, and pay per view. Although AccessMedicine gives detailed information about the cost of individual and pay-per-view subscriptions, libraries must contact a sales representative about an institutional subscription.
Contract Options:
HHH
AccessMedicine has a Terms of Use Web site that details how the content can be used, especially in terms of personal and educational use. Specific contract options can be obtained only through a sales representative and are negotiated on a case by case basis.
Critical Evaluation AccessMedicine is one of the most comprehensive online resources available for a medical audience because its material covers the cycle of medical education, from the medical student in his or her first year to the practicing physician. Its combination of major textbooks (like Harrison’s) and USMLE resources is unique. Unlike MD Consult, a similar product, AccessMedicine offers a healthcare jobs link, podcasts, and videos. The user friendly interface relies on the tabs at the top of the page for accessing content. The content is well displayed with suggestions for other topics or resources to consider on the left side of the screen. Printing, e-mailing, or downloading links are available above or below content, which is helpful. AccessMedicine’s search engine usually works well if a user is searching for one term, but users may have to do an extra step for more than one term or if they use Boolean logic. When searching for multiple terms, AccessMedicine will let users know that it only searches for one concept, listing some related terms. It advises users to click on a link at the bottom of the page for a full-text search. Then their search will be done automatically for both topics. If a user clicks on the Advanced Search feature, they must click on a full-text search box that supports Boolean logic. Since this is the Advanced Search screen, it is surprising that Boolean searching cannot be done automatically. Some features in AccessMedicine need improvement. Although AccessMedicine shows patrons how to cite particular items, it does not indicate which citation style is being used. Database vendors like EBSCO and CSA Illumina offer citations in various citation styles. Since there may be health professionals from different backgrounds using AccessMedicine, perhaps AccessMedicine should include more citation styles.
AccessMedicine should also look into expanding its content’s utilization. A major area that is missing is journal content; however, libraries may find the lack of journal content a plus because of AccessMedicine’s focus on e-books and study guide resources. AccessMedicine does permit external OpenURL-enabled linking to primary literature via PubMed.1 Although AccessMedicine offers more downloadable content than MDConsult, not all of its content can be e-mailed or downloaded onto a PDA. Although the content from Diagnosaurus can be downloaded onto a Blackberry, most of AccessMedicine’s content cannot be downloaded onto a smartphone such as an iPhone. Even though this may be difficult to do because of publication restrictions, AccessMedicine should look into ensuring that all content can be e-mailed or downloaded and expand the kinds of devices that can retrieve downloaded content. AccessMedicine could also look into offering its content in a PDF format. Making PDFs available would reduce printing out extra pages and ensure that users would have the correct pagination, especially if they need to cite something; making
Contact Information Accessmedicine 2 Penn Plaza 23rd Floor New York, NY 10121 Phone: (888) 307-5984 (in the U.S.) Fax: (617) 783-4375 E-mail: URL:
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PDFs available would be an added benefit for AccessMedicine because MD Consult has select content in PDF format such as its Clinics collection.
be configured by EZproxy. There is no additional charge for remote access.
Author’s Selected References Contract Provisions and Authentication The Terms of Notice page has information about what can be done with AccessMedicine’s content by subscribers. Content can be used for personal use like research or study. Although the content may be displayed, downloaded, or printed, it does not appear that the content may be copied, lent through interlibrary loan, or modified.2 AccessMedicine’s images may be used for personal use or educational use. The Terms of Use Web site defines educational use as “classroom teaching, lectures, presentations, rounds, and other instructional activities such as displaying, linking to, downloading, printing and making and distributing multiple copies of said isolated materials in both print and electronic format.”3 A sales representative must be contacted for additional information about contract provisions. AccessMedicine will accommodate multiuser licenses by IP address or user name/password configuration. Individual resources can also
1. “McGraw-Hill’s Online Medical Products.” AccessMedicine. PowerPoint. 2009. 13 February 2009. . 2. AccessMedicine. Terms of Use. . 3. AccessMedicine. Terms of Use. . 4. “About Search.” AccessMedicine. .
About the Author Rebecca Raszewski is an Assistant Information Services Librarian and Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Library of the Health Sciences. She is the library liaison to the College of Nursing. She has a master’s in Information Science from Drexel University. n
Letters, continued User (Librarian) Controls We say “Patrons text, librarians type.” While the numbers are growing, the fact remains that many librarians do not text and are not comfortable using a mobile device to answer reference questions. Mosio’s system gives librarians control of how they are notified (via e-mail, IM, Web or SMS) about incoming questions. If a librarian has an iPhone and wants to be mobile, away from the reference desk while answering patron questions, they have the flexibility to do so with Mosio’s service, but it is not required. We’ve spoken to hundreds of reference librarians (over 200 live demos of the service were conducted at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Denver) and have found Patron Privacy and enabling individual librarians to interact with the system however they’re most comfortable are two of their primary concerns. We are being told that our service not only covers those two elements, but also offers substantial reporting, collaborative functions, and tools for both training and patron marketing/education. We invite anyone interested in implementing SMS Reference to contact us for a demo of our system as it is currently being used in libraries. We’re confident you’ll find it vastly different from the limited version upon which Murphy’s review is based. Feedback on how to improve the service to make it better for both patrons and librarians is always welcome. Thank you for your time, Noel Chandler CEO, Mosio
January 28, 2009 Dear Editor Great issue (vol. 10 no. 3) … The reviews that were highly relevant to us right now were Health and Wellness Resource Center (have had for several years); LibGuides (evaluating); Mango Languages (just purchased, deploying …); Text a Librarian (evaluating); and the review of the New EBSCOhost interface (we have them in some database subject areas). P. Michael McCulley, Electronic Resources Librarian San Diego Public Library, 820 E Street, MS-17 San Diego, CA 92101
