HSL-News Information-Archive

February 2000

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HSL-News: 2-18-00
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1. MD Consult Access Easier
2. PubMed Central Goes Live
3. FDRx Evolving

1. MD Consult Access Easier

HSL has modified its license with MD Consult to allow generic access. This
means that users who do not want to see or set up customized features,
such as personalized patient handouts, CME and tailored news updates, can
get to MD Consult information without setting up an individual account.
Those who have individual accounts (and want to create customized
features) can continue to use them. New users may still choose to set up
accounts as well. For details, see
/help/mdconsult.html .

Users must be using a UW-ip computer (includes UWICK and proxy server
access) to choose between generic and custom access. The Welcome screen
at that point gives you two options: 1) generic edition where you click a
single button to enter MD Consult, or 2) personal edition where the user
enters his own userid and password before continuing.

Caution: To use generic MD Consult access for a linkout in PubMed you
must already have a generic MD Consult session open before starting
PubMed. Please remember to exit/logoff when you're finished using MD
Consult because we have a limited number of simultaneous user logins
available.

2. PubMed Central Goes Live!

PubMed Central, the NIH-hosted repository for the full text of life
science research reports became live on February 11, 2000 at
http://pubmedcentral.nih.gov. The full text can be viewed without charge
both as HTML files or as downloadable PDFs. One issue each of two titles
(Moleculer Biology of the Cell and the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences of the United States of America) are now available as proof of
concept. Additional materials will be added shortly.

3. FDRx Evolving

The FDRx (Federated Drug Reference) was developed by a team of health
professionals, librarians and computer specialists under the IAIMS grant
umbrella to provide a reliable source of drug information for UW
prescribers. The original concept included information from the US
Pharmacopeia Drug Information (USPDI) Volume I, UW Formulary and direct
searches by drug name to PubMed with links to other web-based drug
information resources.

Since the present model cannot be sustained with current budget and staffing
levels, the FDRx Development Team is reviewing it to come up with a new
model. Most likely, FDRx will evolve into a collection of links to the rich
online drug information resources already available to UW health
professionals. For the next few months, if you connect to the FDRx
(/fdr/) you will be asked to answer a
brief survey about your previous use of this resource so that a new,
useful product can be built.

As a side note, even though we will not be providing our own interface to
the USPDI, we will be adding it to our Stat!Ref subscription along with
access to the AHFS Drug Information and Medical Letter. We anticipate
these additional resources will be available in March and will announce
the availability then.