The Vetlexicon Solution
The most important issue is that information delivery should be at the time of need. The reality is that the textbook is not in the library, the refresher course is in three months’ time or it is hard to remember, locate and then find time to read the whole scientific paper to ascertain whether the required facts are contained within it. . Furthermore, recall is maximised if the information is presented at the time of need.
The information source needs to be comprehensive by covering all body systems and disciplines and in sufficient depth. Text information should be enhanced where appropriate with pictures, illustrations, graphics, sounds and video because veterinary medicine is very audio-visual.
The information should be of the highest quality. Not only should the material be written by leading edge clinicians in a concise and easily digestible style, but the information should also have gone through a peer review process to ensure the validity of the information presented. Ideally, the information should be open to challenge and review, not just by well respected experts, but by clinicians using such an information system within their practice.
Veterinary knowledge is said to be doubling every ten years. Such an information system must cope with the changes in veterinary knowledge, be constantly updated and show the user where and how the science has changed.
All information should be accessible within a couple of seconds using industry standard computer hardware and not depend on variables outside the control of the clinic (e.g. telephone lines accessing on-line information services). The vet should be able to search and navigate for information in the same way that a they think and work. All information should be cross linked to all associated and relevant other pieces of information, such as diseases, laboratory tests, surgical techniques, indicated treatments, breed predispositions, etc. together with illustrations, sounds, and video.
Vetstream’s Vetlexicon has numerous unique features which are not available via other sources (such as books, journals etc.) are:
- Quality assured -peer reviewed by more than 900 of the world’s leading clinicians
- Comprehensive – the content covers more than 30 categories (body system and disciplines) with more than 19,000 components (text, video, images).
- Structured – with different templates for different content types, i.e. the headings and subheadings of a disease will be the same as all the other diseases, but have different headings to laboratory tests. This enables vets to find the prognosis of a disease, or the adverse reactions of a drug, very quickly and intuitively
- Updated regularly- to enable clinicians to be informed of changes in the symptoms or treatment options
- Interactive – with content linked to other related content so a vet can move from the disease to the laboratory test, or radiographs of the condition, to a diagnostic or surgical technique and then information to print out and give to owners all within the same system.
- Delivered at point of need – all the content is provided to be accessible from any internet enabled device whatever its operating system or browser.
The expertise of the company is renowned across the world and it was appointed Education Partner to the World Small Animal Veterinary Association in April 2016
