More Daily POEMs

In our last post, I highlighted Daily POEMs from Essential Evidence Plus.  One thing this service is good for is alerting me to clinical topics that students and faculty might want more information on.  I keep an "Of Interest" folder in my Inbox so I can file away the POEMs that seem especially interesting.  Lately it seems like there have been several on women's health topics.

Late last month, one POEM showed that breast cancer screening benefits are overrated. Earlier in the month, on Valentine's Day in fact, there was a POEM showing the benefits of delayed cord clamping. More recently, a POEM showed that for low-risk women, there was no difference between giving birth at home, in a birth center, or in an OB unit.

Finally, today a Daily POEM arrived in my Inbox that made me smile - "Three-step identification method for recognizing dangerous snakes." Now, I'm sure this is a serious problem, it just seems so different from the pregnancy, women's health, and primary care topics that we normally deal with in the library.  I'm happy to know that if I need to identify a venomous snake, I know which resource to turn to.

Daily POEMs

October is almost over, but not quite! We still have a few days left of National Medical Librarians Month. I'd like to continue our celebration by discussing another little known resource, Daily POEMs from Essential Evidence Plus. Many of you may have used Essential Evidence Plus before (and if you haven't be sure to check it out!) but you may not know about the Daily POEMs Alert service. POEM stands for Patient-Oriented Evidence that Matters, and each one contains a clinical question, bottom line (answer), and reference, as well as information on the study design, funding, setting, and a synopsis. You can have these emailed to you daily.

Email message with Daily POEM

If you don't want to clog your Inbox, though, never fear! You can search within the POEMs on EE+ by choosing "POEMs research summaries" in the drop-down menu.

You can also browse the POEMs by date or topic by clicking on "POEMs Research Summaries" under "Browse Our Databases."

Here are some recent POEMs of interest, so you can get an idea of the topics addressed:

• Oral steroids beneficial with antibiotics for chronic rhinosinusitis in children and adolescents
• Outcomes of oxytocin regimens for augmentation of labor
• Immediate insertion after uterine aspiration increases IUD use rate

In addition to the daily messages and database, a weekly podcast is available too!

I hope you'll consider using POEMs when you need to answer a clinical question!