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Editor: This post hosts an open letter of sorts to spread the word about an ambitious and inspired project that looks to build a forum for knowledge translation in medicine. Very quick and easy to register and completely free. In many ways my initial observations are that this is a formalisation platform for many of the discussions that occur on a daily basis in the #FOAMed community on Twitter. I see United Medicine as holding enormous potential to fill a void often noted by users of Twitter to articulate the nuances of Evidence Based Practice within 140 character microblogs. I have absolutely no conflicts of interests or disclosures related to this venture – I just think it is a great idea, well worth the price of registration – FREE is definitely the right price!
Combining Opinion to Translate Evidence into Practice www.unitedmedicine.net
Alongside formal resources and guidelines, many of the most useful insights come from the informal discussions on healthcare evidence that occur on the shop floor, meetings, conferences or even coffee rooms.
Often we say “What’s the evidence for that?” or “What difference does this trial make to us and our patients?”. The outcomes of those discussions being key to ongoing learning and our clinical decision making. However, if you are off shift, late to the conference, or just choose to go to the costa instead of the coffee room you may miss those important insights that go no further.
A new platform is now available to facilitate consensus on the ‘coalface’ implications of the newest evidence, and makes those insights available to all healthcare professionals 24/7. You don’t have to be a professor or trialist to contribute; it’s all about creating a bigger audience for the discussion that happens in day to day practice.
The story started at 2am on a night shift in the Emergency Department with staff chatting to their colleagues about the latest trauma study. It struck them as odd that the same discussion was likely taking place in many other places around the world, but the dialogue never gets joined up in any way.
United Medicine was created to address this problem. It is completely free and open to all registered healthcare professionals providing a structured, guided review process that combines individual opinion of evidence and presents them in intelligent feeds tailored to your speciality and interests. A voting system within UM allows the very best comments to come to the fore, and to be shared with a wide base of peers.
In short, the ultimate aim is to facilitate the transformation of evidence into practice, with the end outcome being more consistent, better patient care.
Dr Matt Wilson
Co-founder United Medicine
About the man behind United Medicine. Matt qualified as a doctor from Cardiff University back in 2009. Following foundation he spent 3 years as a military doc, mostly with the Royal Marines (42 Commando) in a number of places including Somalia, Albania, Middle East, Norway and Kenya. Matt now works in Poole Hospital ED in the UK and is a big advocate of FOAM & evidence based medicine. Matt has recently become Dad and enjoys getting out on the water when he can!
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