UpToDate is a clinical database with information on diseases, drugs, and updates in clinical practice. 
A link to UpToDate can be found in the library's A-Z list of databases.
You must sign in to use UpToDate. If you don't yet have an account, scroll down and register.
You can also use UpToDate on your phone by downloading the UpToDate (Wolters Kluwer) App.
UpToDate has several types of content you can access by clicking the down arrow next to the Contents tab in the top left corner. This guide provides a quick overview of the different categories with relevant screen shots.
This content shows important updates in the major specialty areas. It is a great way to stay up to date in your area.
2. Practice Changing Updates
Updates on major changes in clinical practice can be found here. The changes are organized chronologically, with the most recent at the top.
This content has information on how to help nurses evaluate the numbers on lab reports, specifically when these numbers are outside the norm. There are sections on chemistry labs, coagulation labs, endocrinology labs, hematology labs, microbiology labs, and tumor marker labs.
This section provides general drug information about drugs used in the USA but also internationally used drugs. Each drug as an information sheet with sections on drug name variations, dosing, adverse reactions, contraindications, warnings, precautions, generics, safety issues, etc. The list of drugs is in alphabetical order.
NOTE: To learn whether certain drugs can be taken together, use the tab at the top call Drug Interactions. You can enter a number of drug names to see whether there are any known interactions.
The Drug Information section also contains international drug information (concise) drug information for patients and pediatric drug information. Finally, if you want to find out about new drugs, drug approvals, warnings, or drugs removed from the market in the past six months, click on What's new in Drug Therapy.
Patient Education content is specifically created for patients and covers many different topics. There are two types of content:
1) The Basics, which are short overviews on diseases and conditions written in plain language that typically describe everything a patient might want to know about.
2) Beyond the Basics articles are longer reviews that may contain some medical terminology and are more complex.
The content is organized by topic, and for each subtopic the available, the available patient information is listed and can be displayed in four different languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, and Spanish) to address different patient needs.
This section provides you with information on a lot of different specialties. You can explore topics and drill down to specific information. For example, when you click on Hematology, then Pediatric hematology, and then Bone marrow transplantation, you will find a number of articles related to this topic, such as Donor selection for hematopoietic cell transplantation, written by medical experts and summarizing the literature on this subject.
If you would like more information on using UpToDate, please visit the UpToDate User Academy. There are further instructions as well as helpful videos. You can also download a Quick Reference Guide.
