Research 101: The Health Sciences

Point-of-care tools are easily accessible resources, usually in the form of mobile applications or mobile-friendly websites, that allow users to refer to topics or clinical guidelines to provide a reliable diagnosis or therapy quickly at the patient's point of care. To see the full list of apps available through the Creighton University Libraries' subscriptions, please see our Mobile Apps page in the Evidence-Based Practice Library Guide.

Some point-of-care tools allow users to set-up alerts in their home feed, in addition to featured updates regarding outbreaks, evidence, or items deemed "potentially practice-changing."  This availability and process varies across tools.

To set up an alert:

• Search for your favorite tool in the Creighton University Libraries A-Z Databases or, if already downloaded and logged in with your Creighton credentials, open up the application on your mobile device.
• On the landing page, look for buttons, tabs, or links that say "Alerts" or "What's New" or  or similar descriptions.
• Depending on the resource, you may be required to create a free account on the web site before setting up customized alerts
• Follow our instructions and tips below for individual tools available through the Creighton University Libraries.

In DynaMed, you can follow medical specialties or individual topics, which will send you alerts about new research that might impact clinical practice.

To follow a specialty, click on the Specialties tab in the top navigation menu, and then click the Follow button next to the specialty you are interested in.

Once you have chosen a topic to follow, you will be able to choose how you would like to receive alerts. You can have alerts sent to your email, only show alerts on the DynaMed homepage, or only get Potentially Practice-Changing Alerts to your email, which will limit emails to only those alerts that have significant clinical implications.

You can also follow a specific topic, such as a condition or disease. After finding a topic by searching or browsing, look for the follow icon towards the top-right of the page. You will have the same options for following as you do for following entire specialties. 

To keep up with recent research developments in UpToDate, click on Contents in the top navigation bar, and then on What's New. The What's New section will provide you with clinically relevant updates for a given specialty from the past 6 months.

Additionally, you can use the Practice Changing UpDates section to only focus on the most clinically important updates across all specialties.