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Helpful Health Care Links

SHM’s Health Care Links page will provide you with a compilation of links to external organizations who offer online information and resources. The current categories are focused around clinical care, ethics, hospital quality and patient safety, anthrax, bioterrorism and disaster preparedness. If you have additional categories you would like considered for inclusion or additional links you would like considered as additions to the already existing categories. Please send your submissions to webmaster@hospitalmedicine.org

Clinical Care

Society for Medical Decision Making
The Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM) promotes rational and systematic approaches to decision making that will improve the health and clinical care of individuals and assist health policy formation. The cornerstones of SMDM's mission are multidisciplinary scholarship, the development of applications that benefit patients and society, the evaluation of such applications and dessemination of its research.

MD Consult
MD Consult provides clinical information for physicians. It integrates the most renowned collection of medical content online to provide fast answers in full-text from respected sources such as leading medical texts, premier journals, peer-reviewed guidelines, patient handouts and more.

MDgrad
MDgrad is a portal for internal medicine residents.  It provides access to thousands of medical resources including medline articles, medical references, journals, fellowships and job listings.  It also facilitates networking and communication through team schedules, messaging and an online calendar.

UpToDate
UpToDate is a practical clinical information service designed to provide instant, expert answers to clinical questions. It is written by a recongnized faculty of experts who each address a specific clinical issue. They synthesize the latest evidence adn best practices and provide detailed recommendations.

Society of Critical Care Medicine
The Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) is dedicated to ensuring excellence and consistency in the practice of critical care medicine. SCCM is the only organization that represents all professional components of the critical care team.

The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics
The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics is an independent, peer-reviewed, non-profit publication that offers unbiased critical evaluations of drugs - with special emphasis on new drugs - to physicians oand other members of the health professions. (Reader must subscribe.)

Centres for Health Evidence
The Centres for Health Evidence (CHE) is a non-profit organization that provides evidence-based practice resources to health professionals, patients and policy makers.

Last Acts
Last Acts is an unprecedented national effort, by a coalition of professional organizations, to raise awareness of the need to improve care of the dying and to share issues and ideas at the national, state and local levels. The organization focuses on managing pain and making life better for individuals and families facing death. The Honorary Chair of Last Acts is former First Lady Rosalynn Carter.

familydoctor.org
This Web site is published by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). AAFP is a national, non-profit medical association that promotes and maintains high-quality standards for family doctors who are providing continuing comprehensive health care to the public. A family physician is a doctor who is educated and trained in family practice. Family physicians possess unique attitudes, skills, and knowledge to provide medical care for any patient, regardless of sex, ae or type of problem.

American Academy of Family Physicians
The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) is the national association of family doctors. Founded in 1947, AAFP provides responsible advocacy for and education of patients and the public in all health-related matters; preserves the promotes quality cost-effective health care; promotes the science and art of family medicine to ensure an optimal supply of well-trained physicians; promotes and maintains high standards among physicians who practice family medicine; preserves the right of family physicians to engage in medical and surgical procedures for which they are qualified by training and experience; to provide advocacy, representation and leadership for the specialty of family practice.

Best Evidence
Best Evidence is an online and CD resource. It combines article abstracts and commentary printed in the ACP Journal Club and Diagnostic Strategies. The ACP Journal Club reviews the internal medicine literature in a standardized way. Authors summarize clinically important studies into a structured abstract format and experts in the field write an accompanying commentary. It's clearly presented, often with charts and tables. Diagnostic Strategies provides appraisal and interpretation of information on diagnostic testing.

Clinical Evidence
Clinical Evidence is a continuously updated source of evidence available online, on CD, in print, and in a handheld version. Only evidence on the effects of clinical interventions (prevention and treatment) is included, with thorough searches and literature appraisal. Recommendations for aplying the evidence are provided as well.

Physicians' Information and Education Resource (PIER)
PIER is an evidence-based resource developed by ACP-ASIM. It contains modules on 125 clinical topics, covering diseases as well as legal medicine, ethics, complementary/ alternative medicine, screening and prevention, and a drug database. Recommendations are rated by the type of evidence on which they are based, and content is peer reviewed.

MEDLINE Plus
Updated daily, MEDLINE Plus offers a goldmine of good health information from the world's largest medical library, the National Library of Medicine. It has extensive information from the National Institutes of Health and other trusted sources on over 500 diseases and conditions. Also available are lists of hospitals and physicians, a medical encyclopedia and dictionaries, extensive information on prescription and nonprescription drugs, links to clinical trials and more.

STAT!Ref
STAT!Ref® electronic medical library is an intuitive clinical resource that enables users to cross-search a wealth of core medical references such as Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, The Merck Manual, WebMD’s Scientific American Medicine (SAM) and ACP’s evidence-based PIER, among others.

Features include:

• A la carte availability
• Delivery via CD-ROM, DVD, Internet and intranet
• Over 35 titles found on the Brandon-Hill list
• Links to journal abstracts
• Simple intuitive searching
• Expandable table of contents
• Stedman’s dictionary integrated in the toolbar
• Report Builder usage statistics availability

American Academy of Pediatrics
For pediatricians with a special interest and commitment to general inpatient pediatric care, the AAP hosts a special forum, the Section on Hospital Care (SOHC). Membership in the SOHC is open to general pediatricians, pediatric hospitalists, academicians, primary care pediatricians, subspecialists and residents with an active interest and involvement in general inpatient pediatrics. The Section focuses on systems, logistics and organization of general inpatient pediatric care in addition to relevant clinical issues. Areas of focus of the SOHC include education, policy, membership, communication, and research. Opportunities for involvement in each of these areas are available.

National Guidelines Clearinghouse
This is a free, comprehensive, public resource for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. At the site, you can search by disease/condition, treatment/intervention, or organization, and can compare competing guidelines. It also has a "What's new" section to update you on recently added clinical practice guidelines.

Medscape
This is a free online clinical resource designed to provide clinicians with timely and comprehensive clinical information. With a one-time registration, clinicians have access to over 125 journals and textbooks, review articles, expert columns, book reviews, and patient education materials, all tailored to your specialty.

Ethics

Kennedy Institute of Ethics 
The Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Institute of Ethics, established at Georgetown University in 1971, is a teaching and research center offering ethical perspectives on major policy issues. It is the largest university based group of faculty members in the world devoted to research and teaching in biomedical ethics and other areas of applied ethics. The Institute also houses the most extensive library of ethics in the world, the National Reference Center  for Bioethics Literature; produces bibliographic citations relating to bioethics for the online databases at the National Library of Medicine; and conducts regular seminars and courses in bioethics.

The Hastings Center
The Hastings Center explores fundamental ethical questions in health care, biotechnology, and the environment. Founded in 1969 as an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, the Center is the oldest research institute of its kind in the world. Its interdisciplinary research projects-in Genetics & Biotechnology, Humans & Nature, Health Care & Health Policy, Ethics & Scientific Research, and International arenas-bring together participants from many backgrounds to share insights as they frame issues, pose conceptual distinctions, and debate ethical positions to inform professional practice and social policy.

Medical College of Wisconsin
The Medical College of Wisconsin is a private, academic institution dedicated to leadership and excellence in the following areas. Education: Teaching physicians and scientists of tomorrow while enhancing the skills of today's health professionals. Research: Creating new knowledge in basic and clinical science through biomedical, behavioral and health services research. Patient Care: Caring humanely and expertly for patients and providing leadership in health services. Community Services: Forging local, regional, national and global partnerships in education, health care, and research for the betterment of human health.

Hospital Quality and Patient Safety

Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
The Joint Commission evaluates and accredits nearly 18,000 health care organizations and programs in the U.S. Independent and not-for-profit, JCAHO is the nation's premiere standards-setting and accrediting organization in health care. Since 1951 JCAHO has developed state-of-the-art, professionally-based standards and evaluated the compliance of health care organizations against these benchmarks.

National Quality Forum
The National Quality Forum is a not-for-profit membership organization created to develop and implement a national strategy for health care quality measurement and reporting. A shared sense of urgency about the impact of health care quality on patient outcomes, workforce productivity, and health care costs prompted leaders in the public and private sectors to create the National Quality Forum as a mechanism to bring about national change.

American College of Medical Quality
The mission of the American College of Medical Quality (ACMQ) is to provide leadership in creating, sustaining and applying a scientifically-based infrastructure for the practice of clinical quality improvement.

Institute for Healthcare Improvement
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is a not-for-profit organization created to help lead the improvement of health care systems, and to continually increase their quality and value. The measures of improvement include improved health status, better clinical outcomes, lower cost, broadened access, greater ease of use, and higher satisfaction for individuals and their communities.

National Patient Safety Foundation
The mission of the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) is to improve patient safety in the delivery of health care by it efforts to: identify and create a core body of knowledge; identify pathways to apply that knowledge; develop and enhance the culture of receptivity to patient safety; raise public awareness and foster communications about patient safety; and improve the status of the Foundation and its ability to meet its goals.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
CMS has several efforts in progress to provide hospital quality information to consumers and others and improve the care provided by the nation's hospitals. These initiatives build upon previous CMS and QIO strategies to identify illnesses and/or clinical conditions that affect Medicare beneficiaries in order to: promote the best medical practices associated with the targeted clinical disorders; prevent or reduce further instances of these selected clinical disorders; and prevent related complications.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) supports research designed to: improve the outcomes and quality of health care; reduce its costs; address patient safety and medical errors; and broaden access to effective services. The research sponsored, conducted, and disseminated by AHRQ provides information that helps people make better decisions about health care.

Anthrax and Bioterrorism

Bioterrorism Education from the University of Alabama-Birmingham
This site has been designed to provide resource information and continuing education about rare infections and potential bioterrorist agents.

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from CDC

Emergency Preparedness and Response from CDC
This resource offers guidance on specific bioterror and chemical agents, radiation emergencies, natural disasters, and recent outbreaks. Enroll in a clinician registry for e-mail updates on terrorism and emergency response topics.