ABSTRACT
Most hospital drug information services are willing to answer queries and many health authorities have a contract with a local drug information department to deal with questions from GPs, pharmacists, patients and others. The US government has responded to the explosion of interest in looking for health-related information on the Internet and has created a site called Healthfinder. Most web browsers are easy to use and can be accessed without charge for use. The work of the collaboration has included a huge hand-search of the world's medical journals to identify randomised controlled trials. A number of hospital sites have excellent supporting data for guidelines and protocols as well as pointers to drug information. One of the challenges around the science of evidence-based medicine has been to ensure that sound scientific methods are used in the review process. The Cochrane Library is an electronic library published four times a year and is the publishing arm of the Cochrane Collaboration.
