The Answer Engine and The Journal of Clinical Q&A

Trip prides itself as a great tool for answering clinical questions. Over 80% of users find the information they need, all or most of the time.  But that's still not perfect and one idea I keep coming back to is the 'answer engine'.  The wonderful Muir Gray said, in relation to finding evidence, that three clicks was two clicks too many.  So, the challenge is, is there a way of getting answers based on a single mouse click?The answer (or perhaps 'My answer') is the answer engine.This would involve a system to try and understand the search and display a suitable answer.  So, if a user searches for minocycline and acne we can be fairly confident that they're interested to know if minocycline is effective in treating acne.  Therefore, we could drop in the following answer:Minocycline is an effective treatment for moderate to moderately-severe inflammatory acne vulgaris, but there is still no evidence that it is superior to other commonly-used therapies. This review found no reliable evidence to justify the reinstatement of its first-line use, even though the price-differential is less than it was 10 years ago. Concerns remain about its safety compared to other tetracyclines.This has been taken from a recent Cochrane Systematic Review.  The normal search results would appear beneath the 'answer'.  The user gets a great answer in one click.There are a few issues with the above and one is scalability.  Parts of this can be automated but much ...
Source: Liberating the literature - Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs