Wolters Kluwer arms Coronavirus efforts with new global interactive map using UpToDate

Interactive search intensity and added resources for clinicians battling COVID-19.

Wolters Kluwer, Health is supporting clinicians on the front lines fighting the COVID-19 pandemic with additional evidence-based resources in UpToDate® and a new interactive COVID-19 search intensity map. The map helps clinicians and public health agencies track the virus and may support clinicians in gaining predictive insights on reported cases based on clinical search activity from 1.9 million clinicians at the point of care.

“With a legacy of nearly 30 years, UpToDate has been there to support and promote the best patient care around the world; we will never waver in that commitment. In these most difficult times, we want to support clinicians in any way we can,” said Denise Basow, MD, CEO, Clinical Effectiveness at Wolters Kluwer, Health. “That’s why we have provided open access to our COVID-19 clinical and patient topics in UpToDate.”

Continuously updated COVID-19 resources

Since February 1st, UpToDate’s clinical COVID-19 topics have been viewed over two million times. These topics, and easy-to-read patient education resources, are updated continuously. In addition, the UpToDate editorial team has expanded free access to topics in Infectious Diseases, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, providing information related to diagnosis and management of COVID-19 and its complications.

To support clinicians with patients heading home after hospitalization for COVID-19, discharge instructions and patient-facing information is now available for free. The downloadable PDF includes information about recommended care at home, follow-up care, medications, what physical activity will be limited and more.

Interactive COVID-19 search intensity map

To help epidemiologists and public health agencies turn the tide on the coronavirus pandemic, Wolters Kluwer has developed a global interactive bubble map that highlights areas of high clinical search intensity in UpToDate, which may support clinicians in gaining helpful insight to anticipate regional increases of reported COVID-19 cases.

Cross-disciplinary teams at Wolters Kluwer developed the interactive map by analyzing how often specific questions related to COVID-19 are searched by doctors, nurses and other clinicians globally. This leverages global search activity in UpToDate, a trusted resource used by more than 1.9 million clinicians for clinical decision support in direct patient care.

Data scientists calculated and displayed what is called “search intensity” and also factored into this bubble map cases of COVID-19 reported by Johns Hopkins University. In previous studies (looking at MERS and influenza),^1,2 an increase in search intensity correlated with documented outbreaks.

The map illustrates how search intensity increases over time in regions around the world and where it is diminishing. It currently includes country-level data around the world as well as state-level data in the U.S.