As we have learnt from previous infectious outbreaks, the dynamic evolution of clinical knowledge lasts well beyond the initial crisis. Evidence has shown that following the Zika virus outbreak there was a 3,319 percent spike in disease-specific publications and a 1,248 percent rise in research accompanied the emergence of SARS.
It is this research that has been, and continues to be, crucial to expand and refine the knowledge and facilitate best practice at the patient bedside. Outbreaks are characterised by sudden increase in patient volumes and high clinical acuity. Therefore, patient outcomes are dependent on the rapid continuous refinement of care aligned to the latest knowledge and consensus.
So, how can clinicians be best supported in an environment where evidence and guidance changes quickly?
Addressing the challenges associated with staying current in an evolving clinical environment
As COVID-19 developed into a pandemic of global proportions, clinicians and researchers struggled to stay current with the evolving clinical knowledge and the required data to keep “up-to-speed” with COVID-19 symptoms and treatments.
Over the past year, novice clinicians have been needing to care for higher complexity patients earlier in their careers, whilst longer serving healthcare professionals have found themselves working in unfamiliar care settings or specialties.
Clinical knowledge search apps are easily accessible; however, certain human tendencies, busy clinical practices and unfamiliar healthcare settings can prevent clinicians from regularly reviewing the latest medical research. This is where the importance of clinical leadership, organisational culture and best practice norms, as well as processes that promote and support clinicians to seek timely continuous medical education to stay current, must be considered. It takes purposeful effort and commitment to ensure a department of physicians are equipped and practicing the latest medicine possible. It is imperative that evolving clinical knowledge should contribute to constant adjustments or refinements to treatment decisions at the point of care.
Increased insights into how and when healthcare professionals’ access and use clinical knowledge, via knowledgebase search tools, can help healthcare leaders develop better, more effective continuous learning strategy.
Such tools are also valuable resources for hospital systems and administrators, especially if healthcare leaders can track search data within reference tools to understand what clinical information their clinicians need and in what form they need it. With ClinicalKey, access and usage analytics provide the clinical leaders with insights into the topics that are getting the most clinical attention, and how the topic focus is evolving over time. This allows clinical leaders to connect the dots and add context to the knowledge search patterns. Whether the correlation is between a spike in patient cases, or treatment patterns leading to concerning quality or safety outcomes, the clinical leaders can facilitate and enable the clinicians to practice the latest, best evidenced medicine.
Transforming the common clinical knowledge base into local practice
What the COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized is the unique importance of integrating scientific research and healthcare to build a common clinical knowledgebase. To meet this need, the content must be trusted and based on both the collective opinions of peers, but also based on a reputable track record. The collective clinical knowledgebase is global, but the practice of medicine is local, and not just based on language.
Transforming the common knowledge into informational content relevant to different contexts and regional healthcare ecosystems draws from long-standing experience and local presence. Resultingly, Elsevier has been working continuously to enhance their solutions, making them more responsive and accessible at the point of care to meet the need of quick answers and a deeper understanding. Elsevier’s ClinicalKey supports healthcare professionals globally with the latest evidence across specialties in a variety of formats. Going one step further, ClinicalKey Now responds to local need in local markets by allowing colleagues to share information from trusted peer advice, so that they can have confidence in their decisions to sustain continuity of care for patients. By delivering a powerful combination of short, localised, actionable, accessible information clinicians are provided with quick answers enable clinicians to dive deeper into the content.
In the wake of COVID-19, proactive information is more important than ever and gives clinicians “peace of mind” throughout the decision-making process. Clinical knowledge search tools provide easy access to aid the broad range of clinical questions and challenges.
The fast evolving new normal will require every clinician to continually learn at a rapid rate. Improved search technology that utilizes visual cues and refined search algorithms are vital in helping clinicians get to the right information in the right form faster as well as reducing the cognitive load required to search.
Solutions such as ClinicalKey that can interlink between content types allows for ease of accessibility without repeating the search query, which is hugely beneficial and reduces the burden on clinicians and enables them to continue to provide high quality care in rapidly changing clinical environments.
Article by Ian Chuang, Chief Medical Officer, EMEALAAP Health at Elsevier
