Wolters Kluwer celebrates 30 years of UpToDate, the industry-leading clinical decision support solution

More than two million clinicians around the world trust and depend on UpToDate to help them diagnose and improve care decisions

Wolters Kluwer, Health  marked 30 years of UpToDate®, an industry-leading clinical decision support (CDS) solution. More than two million clinicians in over 190 countries trust UpToDate to help them improve care by providing evidence-based answers to clinical questions. Studies have demonstrated that UpToDate helps improve decision-making leading to higher quality of care and improved health outcomes. It has also had a substantial impact on medical education.

“For 30 years UpToDate has offered evidence-based answers to critically important questions,” said Peter Bonis, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Wolters Kluwer, Health. “The urgency to get it right is core to our culture, and as we look to the next 30 years, we know there is more to do. Our goal is to ensure care teams everywhere have access to trustworthy, evidence-based information and actionable information when and where they need it.”

According to Mr. Harish Ramachandran, Country Head – India, and SAARC at Wolters Kluwer's Clinical Effectiveness division, “UpToDate has a rich history of 30 years of supporting and promoting the best quality patient care, and we will continue to work towards this commitment. We strive to bring this technology to every healthcare institution even though clinicians have the necessary training and knowledge, access to the most recent and evidence-based information, can help improve clinical outcomes “

Delivering the best care everywhere

The anniversary also marks a major milestone in its partnership with Ariadne Labs Better Evidence program: over 100,000 subscriptions of UpToDate have been donated to caregivers and institutions in resource-limited settings in 159 countries. The program, which began in 2009, is part of Wolters Kluwer’s ongoing mission to deliver the best care everywhere.

“UpToDate subscriptions have supported clinicians working in some of the most challenging settings around the globe, allowing them to provide better, more equitable care for their patients, regardless of location or resources,” said Rebecca Weintraub, MD, Director of Better Evidence at Ariadne Labs a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Giving medical students access to UpToDate in low-resource settings, where cost has traditionally been a major barrier is helping prepare them to provide evidence-based care for long into the future.”

Three decades of better, more consistent care decisions

UpToDate was founded in 1992 by renowned nephrologist Burton “Bud” Rose, MD to solve the challenge of how to help clinicians stay current and make better decisions for their patients. He started with his specialty of nephrology. UpToDate first shipped on floppy disks by mail; a new version was released three times a year.

Three decades later, UpToDate is used on smartphones, browsers, and within electronic health record (EHR) systems by over two million clinicians and 44 thousand institutions across more than 190 countries. It is updated continuously and used heavily with users accessing over 54 million topics per month across 25 specialties.

The power of UpToDate was displayed during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic – with a rapidly changing knowledgebase, it was imperative clinicians had the most recent, vetted, and trusted information to treat patients. UpToDate quickly expanded its resources, providing free access to the Wolters Kluwer Coronavirus Resource Center, featuring over 90 different topics that have been updated two thousand times.

UpToDate has fulfilled Dr. Rose’s ambition to improve care and has been recognized as the standard and leader in the CDS market for pioneering evidence-based, point-of-care solutions that help clinicians align care team decisions. Learn more about the impact that UpToDate is making today in healthcare.

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