Electronic Medicines Compedium

When I first wrote about the Electronic Medicines Compendium (eMC), it was a separate site that you would have to check. It’s now available through NHS Evidence. It isn’t a source that TRIP uses as far as I can see, but it is mentioned. eMC contains prescribing information for the UK and is similar to NPS Medicinewise Medicine Finder (for consumer information), Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme http://www.pbs.gov.au or MIMS. eMC is a product of Datapharm Ltd. From the eMC website: emc is managed and owned by Datapharm Ltd. We work with pharmaceutical companies, the NHS, and other healthcare organisations to provide good information about medicines.

Searching the literature to inform HTA

The EText on Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Information Resources was permanently archived on the NIH website in 2006. This ebook, although originally put together about 18 years ago, is still a valuable guide for the novice HTA librarian or researcher. The information and processes described in this book is still valid but of course many of the tools are now unavailable. There are still some that are around such as ERIC (education database), HSRProj (health services research projects), ClinicalTrials.gov (US and extramural funded trials) and others but for updated tools and resources about search methods, check out SUREInfo on the HTAi Vortal.

Conferences of note

I’m on conference strike! International conferences that is. I’ve been travelling to the other side of the world (apart from countries in Asia) every year since 2009. It has gotten a bit wearing. So, I’m on a conference strike (temporary mind you) for a little while.

There are 2 conferences and 1 workshop in Europe that I would attend if I weren’t on strike. One is the ICML+EAHIL conference at Dublin Castle, Ireland. The program looks great – check it out here. Michelle Kraft is one of the keynote speakers. Registration is now open.

The other conference I would’ve attended is the International Clinical Librarians Conference (ICLC). I attended last year when ICLC paired with the MLA annual meeting in Toronto. It was full on but great. The ICLC organisers are lovely people and it is well worth attending. Planning on visiting the UK for a holiday this year? Why not combine it with a conference? Registrations are now open!

I used to be Chair-Elect and then Chair of the HTAi Information Retrieval Group and part of my role was organising and running the annual pre-conference Advanced Searching workshop. I’m on the Executive Committee assisting the current Chair and Chair-elect and one of those roles is to help advertise the workshop. It looks great though, and early bird registration has been extended to the end of March. You don’t have to attend the HTAi conference itself, though some of the program and workshops on Saturday before the IRG workshop look good. The IRG workshop is called Text Analysis Tools And Rapid Reviews: Practical Guidance For Advanced Information Retrieval. Click here for the HTAi 2017 conference website. This year HTAi2017 is in Rome.

So what is the next conference/workshop I’m going to attend that is a flight away? It will probably be Health Libraries Australia annual PD day, to be held in Perth this July. I’ve not been to WA before, so it could be an interesting trip.