Web Tool May Help Doctors Make Better Decisions

According to a new study in the Nov.-Dec. issue of Annals of Family Medicine, primary care physicians were able to answer more clinical questions when they used a new online resource, the Dynamic Medical Information System, or DynaMed, than if they relied solely upon other resources.

Developed with the support of a National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research award, DynaMed is a collection of clinical summaries on more than 1,800 medical topics. Instead of relying solely on texts in the office or other resources, a doctor can log into DynaMed to compare his patients' ailments with a peer-reviewed, searchable database.

In the recent study, many doctors using the tool changed clinical decisions based on evidence they uncovered in the database.

Courtesy: National Science Foundation