NHS Wales e-Library has extended their national subscription to BMJ Best Practice to include the Comorbidities Manager for all NHS Wales health and care professionals.
In the UK alone, one in three patients admitted to hospital as an emergency have five or more conditions. This poses a significant challenge for healthcare professionals. Clinical guidelines often focus on single conditions, but failure to treat the whole patient can lead to worse clinical outcomes, and longer lengths of stay. The global COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted the problem with over 60% of patients admitted to intensive care units having comorbidities¹.
The Comorbidities Manager with BMJ Best Practice supports the management of the whole patient by including guidance on the treatment of a patient's acute condition alongside their pre-existing comorbidities.
NHS Wales e-Library provides access to BMJ Best Practice as a practical clinical support tool to help NHS Wales health and care professionals to meet the changing and more complex needs of patients, and maximise NHS Wales resources, together resulting in better care and improving outcomes for patients.
Geraint Walker, Clinical Informaticist Critical Care, Digital Health and Care Wales said:
"As a clinical decision support tool, the BMJ Comorbidities Manager is quite easy to add comorbidities and see their effect on any treatment plan. It also provides clear guidance of additional considerations in one singular view for the clinician."
Louise Crowe, Director of Knowledge, BMJ, said:
"We are delighted that NHS Wales e-Library has extended their BMJ Best Practice subscription to include the Comorbidities Manager for all NHS Wales health and care professionals. With 97% of users in a recent study saying that the Comorbidities Manager improved their practice, I am confident that it will deliver enormous value.
At BMJ, everything we do is to help support health professionals, and the Comorbidities Manager represents a step-change in how we do that."
All authorised users of the NHS Wales e-Library can use BMJ Best Practice. Log in at bestpractice.bmj.com. Access is instant from the NHS Wales network or through an NHS Wales OpenAthens account.
Help and support: Contact your local Library, Information or Knowledge Service or BMJ support: support.bmj.com. To learn how to create a free NHS Wales OpenAthens account go to https://elh.nhs.wales/sign-in/
