Information portals where relevant resources have been grouped together. Here you can find out about the following gateways:
EBSCOHost EBSCO Information Services is a leading service provider of e-journal, e-book and e-journal package and print subscriptions, e-resource management tools, full-text and secondary databases, and related services for all types of libraries and research organizations. Its database coverage includes AMED, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Cochrane, SocINDEX and SPORTDiscus. This is a subscription service.
INASP Info Links
A Gateway to selected websites that are of special interest to health professionals, medical library communities, publishers, and Non governmental Organisations (NGOs) in developing and transitional countries. INASP Health Links contains links to 448 selected sites, of which 160 are specifically focused on health information in developing countries. It also provides access to a number of other gateways under the following headings:
INTUTE
Intute is a free online service providing you with access to Web resources for education and research. The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners. Subject specialists select and evaluate the websites in the database and write high quality descriptions of the resources. The database contains 118588 records.
Search engines are often the first choice for people wanting to find specific information on the web. Even when faced with a long list of search results there is nothing to say that the information in those results is going to be appropriate or relevant. The Intute database allows access to both subject-specific and cross-subject resources, all of which have been evaluated for their quality and relevance.
Internet tutorials are also available.
National Library for Health (NLH)
This is a UK initiative. The mission of the National Library for Health (NLH) is to help patients and professionals use best current knowledge in decision-making. The library consists of three main resources:
- Firstly, there is the commitment of 1,275 librarians who know the local communities, and their needs and priorities. The plan is for all healthcare organisations to identify a board member to be Chief Knowledge Officer, supported by a librarian acting as Knowledge Manager.
- The second resource is the national digital knowledge base, a single source of knowledge catalogued, classified and organised so that it is not only easy to find but can be delivered through the media that are now available, for example digital laboratory reports, and e-prescriptions.
- The third resource is the users, organised in communities of practice, which manage the National Specialist Libraries such as the National Library for Cancer or the National Library for Knowledge Management.
It is focused on the quality of knowledge and resources used, as opposed to the quantity of information. It is equally open to patients and clinicians, the public and managers.
It provides access to a range of support sites including Bandolier, Clinical Evidence and the Cochrane Library. Other resources have restricted access for staff working in the UK Health Service.
OVID Ovid Technologies is an internationally recognized leader of electronic medical, scientific, and academic research information solutions. They provide information search and discovery platforms (Ovid Gateway and SilverPlatter) to access premier electronic content, including a growing list of 1,200 journals, over 500 books, and more than 200 databases. Databases covered include: AMED, CINAHL, EMBASE, Evidence Based Medicine Reviews, Global Health Archive, Medline and PsycINFO. This is a subscription service but packages include a 24 hour option.
SumSearch
SUMSearch is a unique method of searching for evidence by using the Internet. It combines meta-searching and contingency searching in order to automate searching for evidence. Meta-searching means simultaneously searching multiple Internet sites and collating the results into one page. In addition, if SUMSearch finds too many 'hits' from an Internet site, it will execute more restrictive, contingency searches. The sites it searches across include PubMed, National Guidelines Clearing House and DARE. Details of all of these can be found in this section. The site can also be accessed in Español, Français and Italiano.
TRIP
TRIP (Turning Research into Practice) is an amalgamation of 26 databases of hyperlinks from 'evidence-based' sites around the world. At present there are over 10,000 links to evidence based topics. The TRIP Database searches over 75 sites of high-quality medical information. It gives you direct, hyperlinked access to the largest collection of evidence-based material on the web as well as articles from premier on-line medical journals such as the BMJ, JAMA, NEJM, etc.
