SearchMedica Offers Medical Professionals Six New Specialized Clinical Web Searches

Main Category: IT / Internet / E-mail
Also Included In: Primary Care / General Practice;  Medical Students / Training;  Nursing / Midwifery
Article Date: 21 Mar 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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SearchMedica.com, the leading search engine for medical professionals, today unveiled six new searchable disease categories. Now, medical professionals can search the Web for credible, clinical information within general medicine or eight more specific categories.

"In talking with medical professionals who actively use SearchMedica for more than a year now, we have gained a much better understanding of the motivations driving medical professionals online and ways they like to slice information and data," said Cyndy Finnie, senior product manager for SearchMedica. "Their own medical specialties don't limit their information gathering needs. It's usually patient conditions that dictate the types of information they seek."

Although SearchMedica encourages medical professionals to register to receive updates about new content and tips on how to use various advanced tools, registration is not required. Medical professionals can visit the site, try the upgraded search functionality and share their feedback at SearchMedica.com.

SearchMedica provides free, open access to the Web's most authoritative content for medical professionals. The new organization of disease categories keeps with this mission and simplifies the search process for medical professionals. The category of musculoskeletal disorders, for example, includes articles from journals and professional associations for rheumatologists and orthopedists, but it also contains other clinical information of use to other specialists, including information on sports medicine and osteoporosis, for example.

"Medical professionals consistently use SearchMedica with a patient's symptom or disease state in mind, and conversations with users are just one instance where this topic has come up. We also heard this feedback during medical meetings," added Finnie. "We've seen the trend at work through user registration data, and this theme regularly appears in our quarterly analysis of the top search terms among medical professionals. SearchMedica's quarterly Top Clinical Search Terms report consistently includes terms that represent a disease or condition, but few symptoms, drugs or procedures ever make the lists."

SearchMedica simplifies the search for professional medical information. By default, SearchMedica indexes all of medicine and retrieves clinical information suitable for any practicing physician or healthcare professional. Specialists, however, can refine their search into one of eight therapeutic categories. These categories, based on the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) include cardiovascular, diabetes/endocrine, infectious, musculoskeletal, cancer/hemic, pediatric, mental/nervous system and respiratory disorders. Early feedback from SearchMedica's registered user base indicates the new interface is easier to use and more intuitive.

Even before its redesign, SearchMedica.com was recently acknowledged for its outstanding user experience as a recipient of a 2007 Standard of Excellence WebAward.

About SearchMedica.com

SearchMedica.com indexes only authoritative medical information, approved for inclusion by medical editors and a physician editorial board. Medical professionals receive more relevant, smaller sets of search results from SearchMedica.com than from mainstream engines, which contain consumer-oriented, paid testimonials and other types of unreliable information. Since SearchMedica.com is advertiser supported, medical professionals pay nothing to use the search engine. All SearchMedica search results are independent and unbiased. They contain well-known, credible journals, peer-reviewed research, and evidence-based articles written for practicing healthcare professionals. SearchMedica is currently available at www.SearchMedica.com.