Introducing… Clinical Focus

Clinical Focus is a search portal that provides quick access to high-quality clinical information.  Clinical Focus uses HSLS’ familiar search box format and clustering technology from Vivisimo, Inc.

To search Clinical Focus, enter a disease, symptom, drug, procedure, test or other short phrase into the search box in the center of the page.  The system searches a pre-selected set of full-text “answer tools” and electronic textbooks from HSLS’ extensive collection.  These include:

  • First Consult’s Medical Conditions
  • Current Diagnosis and Treatment textbooks from the Lange Educational Library
  • ACP Pier
  • MICROMEDEX
  • Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
  • BMJ Clinical Evidence

Search results are clustered into meaningful categories and are directly accessible to any computer on the UPMC or Pitt network, or any authorized remote user.  Users can “remix” the clusters if desired, or “search within clusters” to further refine their results.

On the right-hand side of the screen are other links leading to helpful information.

1- Clinical Focus_v2

Medical Calculators opens MedCalc 3000, a reference and tool set offering medical formulae and equations, clinical criteria sets and decision tree analysis tools.  Clicking on Patient Education opens a new search box that will retrieve patient education resources from UPMC, MedlinePlus and MDConsult (UPMC’s handouts are always “boosted” to the top of the results page in a yellow box.)  Mobile Apps finds information on e-resources for Blackberry, iPhone, Palm or Pocket PC devices.  The EBM button is a quick link to HSLS’ EBM Resource Pyramid.

From every Clinical Focus page, you can link directly to the HSLS home page, offering the library’s full range of services and electronic resources.  And if you’re stumped, Ask a Librarian for individualized assistance, or call the Falk Library Reference Desk at 412-648-8796 (412-623-2415 if you’re at UPMC Shadyside).

Clinical Focus is accessible from the HSLS home page under Quick Links.  From the UPMC eRecord, click on “Health Sciences Library” on the PowerChart tool bar.  In EpicCare, Clinical Focus is found via Links/Medical References/Health Science Library System.

Posted in the 2009 Issue