Expanding Access toInformation to Support the Delivery of Evidence-Based Healthcare Access Utah

Publisher paywalls limit access to approximately 75% of the published biomedical literature.  That represents a massive amount of information being withheld from healthcare providers who lack subscriptions to the journals that control this content.   

The Eccles Health Sciences Library (EHSL) is launching an initiative that enables licensed physicians across the state to retrieve full-text articles from PubMed without encountering a publisher paywall. By registering for an account to use a customized PubMed interface, powered by a subsidized article delivery option, licensed physicians in Utah will have the ability to access published research findings and other evidence to support clinical decision-making.  By removing one of the barriers to information access that disproportionally affects physicians (and their patients) in rural and under-served/under-resourced areas in the state, EHSL seeks to minimize disparities in health information access by healthcare providers in Utah. 

 To support physician engagement in this initiative, EHSL is seeking to create: (1) an online guide that leads users through the steps of registering for, and utilizing, this service in PubMed; (2) a short instructional video that demonstrates the process so that physicians can observe a sample transaction.