Medical care and information is usually needed immediately, or at least as soon as possible.
But also as convenient and easy as possible.
So how do I obtain the best information that I can really rely on?
This challenge is being addressed thanks to non-profit start-up Epistemonikos which seeks to provide the best evidence-based health care combined with information technologies, making it so much easier for people to make decisions with regard to clinical or health-policy issues.
The easily accessible and free collaborative public beta version of this search engine in Spanish was officially launched on August 20th, 2012 with great success.
They are working to better support and aggressively build on the more than 32,000 users from all the continents that have visited the platform since April 2012.
The platform was founded and developed by Gabriel Rada, Assistant professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and Daniel Pérez, Civil Engineer in computer science and creator of several digital ventures, with the participation of hundreds of partners as well as the support of various institutions.
The word “Epistemonikos” – obviously Greek – loosely translates to “What is worth knowing”. And this is exactly what Epistemonikos aims at: Only displaying that certain information that is actually relevant.
The quality of your search results is reassured due to sophisticated software and the work of hundreds of partners around the world which collaboratively collected everything that is now considered scientific evidence in health.
So Epistemonikos gives the necessary answers quickly and in a simple way to researchers, health professionals, academics, medicine students and in the future also to the public.
Only 3 easy steps to find your answer
1) Search the answer to your question:
Simply type in some word, e.g. “Vitamin C and cold” or “Ibuprofen and fever” or anything similar.
Generally, you can search in your own language or English and even use a mix of languages in your search.
2) Refine your search:
The results are displayed according to the similarity to your query.
So what you are looking for will be directly at the top. If it is not, simply refine your search.
3) Navigate to find the best available evidence:
All the information you find is interconnected with other evidences, such as studies, systematic reviews, etc.
Features
Epistemonikos offers …
- Summaries of full text articles: Academic research articles which are mostly hard to understand (and yes, I myself have often been struggling with that kind of literature), but here the summaries are clear and easy to understand, but still also linked to the original article.
- Additional information, continuously updated
- External links
- Information available in 9 of the probably most common languages (English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Portuguese and Chinese in official, collaborative and automatic translations)
- Wide coverage and liability: all information is taken from multiple sources, using transparent methods.
- Related evidence will be suggested to you precisely, but not just by automatic software, but because everything is interconnected (e.g. reviews based on the same primary study)
- Professionality: The Epistemonikos team is supported by lots of experts to ensure the information is accurate
