UpToDate, Inc. is a company in the

Wolters Kluwer Health Wolters Kluwer N.V. () is a Dutch information services company. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands (Global) and Philadelphia, United States (corporate). Wolters Kluwer in its current form was founded in 1987 with a m ...

division of

Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer N.V. () is a Dutch information services company. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands (Global) and Philadelphia, United States (corporate). Wolters Kluwer in its current form was founded in 1987 with a m ...

whose main product is UpToDate, a software system that is a

point-of-care Clinical point of care (POC) is the point in time when clinicians deliver healthcare products and services to patients at the time of care. Clinical documentation Clinical documentation is a record of the critical thinking and judgment of a hea ...

medical resource. The UpToDate system is an

evidence-based Evidence-based practice (EBP) is the idea that occupational practices ought to be based on scientific evidence. While seemingly obviously desirable, the proposal has been controversial, with some arguing that results may not specialize to indivi ...

clinical resource. It includes a collection of medical and patient information, access to Lexi-comp drug monographs and drug-to-drug interactions, and a number of

medical calculator A medical calculator is a type of medical computer software, whose purpose is to allow easy calculation of various scores and indices, presenting the user with a friendly interface that hides the complexity of the formulas. Most offer further helpf ...

s. UpToDate is written by over 7,100 physician authors, editors, and

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...

ers. It is available both via the Internet and offline on personal computers or mobile devices. It requires a subscription for full access. The company was launched in 1992 by Dr.

Burton Rose Burton "Bud" David Rose (November 19, 1942 – April 24, 2020) was an American nephrologist and the creator of UpToDate, an online medical resource. Career Burton Rose was a clinical professor of medicine at Harvard University. He also ...

along with Dr. Joseph Rush out of Rose's home. They started with

nephrology Nephrology (from Greek'' nephros'' "kidney", combined with the suffix ''-logy'', "the study of") is a specialty of adult internal medicine and pediatric medicine that concerns the study of the kidneys, specifically normal kidney function (r ...

and have since added over twenty other specialties, with more in development.

Controversies

UpToDate's articles are anonymously peer-reviewed and it mandates the disclosure of

conflicts of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations ...

by the authors of its articles. In 2014, an article was published in the ''

Journal of Medical Ethics The ''Journal of Medical Ethics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the field of bioethics that was established in 1975. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2019 impact factor of 2.021, ranking it fou ...

'' which scrutinised six articles on UpToDate and DynaMed focusing on conditions where the best means of management is contested, or which are treated mostly by branded drugs. The authors found that all six articles examined from UpToDate contained numerous potential conflicts of interest, with contributors having worked as consultants for or received research grants or speaking fees from manufacturers of drugs mentioned in the relevant UpToDate entry.

Access

Full access to the service requires a subscription, which costs US$559 a year as of 2021 for a physician in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

(lower cost for longer term subscription). Through the Norwegian Electronic Health Library, people in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

have free access to

BMJ Best Practice BMJ Best Practice is an online decision-support tool for use at the point of care. It was created in 2009 by ''The BMJ''. Development ''The BMJ'' launched BMJ Best Practice in 2009. About BMJ Best Practice Ranked one of the best clinical decisio ...

, UpToDate and drug database

Micromedex Merative, formerly IBM Watson Health, is a standalone company as of 2022. Merative offers products and services that help clients facilitate medical research, clinical research, Real world evidence, and healthcare services, through the use of ar ...

. UpToDate was made available for free in New Zealand after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, in Haiti after the

2010 earthquake Earthquakes in 2010 resulted in nearly 165,000 fatalities. Most of these were due to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which caused an estimated 160,000 deaths, making it the 11th deadliest earthquake in recorded history. Other deadly quakes occurred i ...

and in Nepal after the April 2015 earthquake. The

Global Health Delivery Project The Global Health Delivery Project is a project at Harvard University that aims to improve health among disadvantaged populations worldwide by improving practitioners' access to health delivery information. GHD was founded in 2007 by Dr. Jim Yong K ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

administers access to UpToDate for those who offer medical care to poor or underserved populations outside the United States. Better Evidence by Ariadne labs provides health professionals from less developed countries full access for free.

References

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External links

UpToDate website
Medical websites Medical and health organisations based in the Netherlands Health information technology companies

Controversies

Access

See also

References

External links