Online guide to medical databases: QMed

Shardul Nautiyal - Mumbai

A new software has been developed by a city-based medical information consulting company, QMed Services Pvt Ltd for doctors and medical professionals in the form of a Compact Disc (CD). This will enable doctors access medical databases over internet in a jiffy.

The CD named QMedLINKS:General Medicine acts as an interface between the doctor and the medical database called PubMed over internet through self-updating links and search engines for quick information retrieval. (PubMed is a database of indexed journal articles on the internet, owned by the National Library of Medicine, USA.)

CD also comprises a tutorial, which helps in retrieving relevant articles and features from national and international journals, through a set of instructions. The CD aims to facilitate medical professionals to make patient specific searches to ensure quality and timely treatment.

Vasumathi Sriganesh, director of Qmed Services Pvt Ltd, devised this new method to help medical professionals in India access precise and relevant results from medical databases using CD-ROM technology. The CD will help doctors get pre-defined searches that will retrieve highly focused references from a database of over 11 million journal citations from 1960 onwards. Over 500 links in the CD enables retrieval of relevant articles on a large number of topics.

Sriganesh was inspired by a study conducted by an American doctor, Diane G. Schwartz, in 1992 in Indian hospitals and research institutes, which brought forth the fact that doctors should be made aware of the use of Information science and technology for medical research.

The CD covers 20 major topics, including diseases and non-diseases. The CD also comprises a tutorial which teaches as how to conduct search exercises at two skill levels- basic and advanced. The tutorial leads the user through a structured workflow, covering the most commonly used areas of PubMed. The CD is available at a price of Rs 350 only.

“Doctors have very hectic schedules and there are too many publications and information resources at their end. This software would help them provide specifically what they want and enable them practice evidence based medicine (EBM),” Sriganesh said.

The QMed Services Pvt. Ltd., a medical information consulting company, came into being in 1998 by the efforts of Vasumathi Sriganesh, a medical librarian by profession, who wishes to empower healthcare professionals by making them aware of the power of Internet for their professional needs.

The company comprises of information professionals, marketing strategists, a medical advisor, designers and consultants.