UpToDate offers patient education materials about the most common medical conditions and procedures. These topics encapsulate the same information included in the materials provided for clinicians. As such, they give readers the information they need to actively participate in decisions related to their care.
Goals and objectives
For healthcare providers, our goal is to provide patient education materials that can be easily accessed and used with patients at the point of care, enabling shared medical decision making.
For patients, our goal is to provide information that can answer medical questions and help patients make informed medical decisions in partnership with their family and healthcare team.
UpToDate patient information topics
Patients have varying information needs: some want just a brief overview, while others want more in-depth information. UpToDate meets the varying information needs of patients by offering two different types of topics, The Basics and Beyond the Basics:
The Basics - These topics are 1-3 pages in length and are written in simple language. They answer the four or five most important questions that a person might have about a medical problem. The Basics topics are best for readers who want a general overview.
Beyond the Basics - These topics are 5-10 pages long and are more detailed than the topics in The Basics. Beyond the Basics topics are best for readers who want a lot of detailed information and who are comfortable with some technical medical terms.
Our patient information topics also offer:
Integrated full-color pictures, graphics, and charts to help the reader understand difficult medical concepts
A list of key references, with links to study abstracts
Links to other related topics and related search terms in UpToDate
Update schedule and editorial review
Like our clinician-level materials, patient information topics are updated every four months, so they reflect the most recent medical literature. All patient information articles are written by professional medical writers with advanced degrees, and then edited by our in-house physician editors. They are also reviewed by an external physician author and section editor. Thus, our patient information material is current, accurate and evidence-based.
Accessing UpToDate patient information
Clinicians can access patient information topics as follows:
Through the search facility (for example, search "patient info asthma"). In UpToDate online, you can use the Prioritize patient topics option to display patient topics first in the search results.
After logging in, click Patient info on the toolbar, then click on the medical category of interest.
Click Patient in the topic tools area at upper-right in a topic to go directly to the Information for Patients section, where you will find links to any related patient information topics. Note: The Patient tool is available only in professional-level topics for which there is related patient information.
Our Beyond the Basics patient information topics are also available free to the public at www.uptodate.com/patients. Patients can search for information using the search facility. Patients can also click on "view patient-level table of contents" directly below the Search box to view all of our patient information topics by medical category.
About Patient Information
