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Tag: John Willinsky

Could Opening Up the Doors to the World’s Medical Research Save Healthcare?

What if you had access to all of the medical research in the world? Or better yet, what if the physician treating your particularly complex or rare condition had access to the latest research? Or what if a public health organization in your community could access that research to inform policymakers of measures to advance public health?

“Wait,” you may think, “can’t they already access that research? Doesn’t the Internet make that possible?” While unfortunately the answer to the first question is “No,” fortunately the Internet can make such access possible. As it is today, most physicians and public health professionals have very limited access to health research, almost all of which is published online. Only about a quarter of the research published today ends up being available to those working outside of universities, where libraries subscribe to a good proportion of the research journals.

So, what are these health professionals missing? What difference to their work would access to research make? Cheryl Holzmeyer, Lauren Maggio, Laura Moorhead and I seek to answer these questions with a new National Science Foundation study for which we are currently recruiting physicians and staff of public health NGOs.

We seek to demonstrate the difference it makes to the daily work of these health professionals to have easy electronic access to all the biomedical and public health research – or at least that large proportion held by Stanford University Library – for a period of eleven months (with one month of limited access as a control). To assess the impact of this access, we provide participants with a special portal to the research literature and track when and what research is viewed, while following up with interviews on the use and value of this access.

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What If Doctors Had Instant Access to All Medical Research?

We are asking doctors to help us study what access to all medical research would mean for their practice. To study the value of such access, we are providing physicians who participate in this Stanford University Public Access Study with eleven (11) months of complete access to virtually all medical journals, as well as to an evidence-based clinical decision-support service.

Participating physicians will have free, one-click access to this vast body of research on their computer or tablet, whenever and wherever they are online. The study is intended to inform current discussions and legislation on the state of public and professional access to federally funded medical research.

Demands on Participant:  Participants must be a physician licensed to practice in the United States. Data will be collected on participants’ use of research, with selected participants asked to participate in a 30-minute confidential interview. As a control measure, participants are given an extra month of the evidence-based clinical decision-support service, either prior or following the eleven months of access to the research literature.

To learn more and/or to begin immediate participation (after providing informed consent) in the Public Access Study, follow this link: http://nihpublic.stanford.edu/.

The principal investigator of the Public Access Study is John Willinsky, Khosla Family Professor, Stanford University, Stanford CA; john.willinsky@stanford.edu.

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