Dive Brief:
- Due to Wikipedia's popularity as a medical resource for both healthcare professionals and consumers, the site's healthcare editors have been offered complimentary access to DynaMed Plus by its creators, EBSCO Health.
- The clinical reference site will now be available to Wikipedia's team to help them produce, research and verify content in subjects including medicine, pharmacology, public health and more.
- Access to clinical data will help Wikipedia ensure the accuracy and relevance of its material.
Dive Insight:
There are more than 155,000 medical articles on Wikipedia and its healthcare content received more than 4.88 billion views in 2013—and patients and physicians are relying on it.
"Wikipedia is one of, if not the, most viewed online medical resource for both patients and healthcare providers," James Heilman, MD, Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of British Columbia, told HIT Consultant. That makes the site's reliability crucial, he says, and giving its editors access to clinical reference material will both strengthen both its content and its trust among readers.
As many as 300 complimentary DynaMed Plus accounts will be provided through the collaboration.