UAB Medicine and Medscape, the leading online source referenced by U.S. physicians for professional purposes, have announced a partnership designed to advance learning, healthcare and discovery for patients and providers locally and globally, with a mutual long-term vision of transforming the healthcare ecosystem. The partnership began in the summer of 2014 with an educational collaborative project to explore how to enhance care for ischemic stroke. Medscape submitted a grant proposal for development of two continuing medical education (CME)-accredited programs, based on input from UAB physicians and nurses, aimed at improving the quality of stroke care through the implementation of national guideline-concordant recommendations. These courses were available exclusively to UAB prior to national launch.
The success of that collaboration sparked an interest from both Medscape and UAB Medicine to develop a deeper relationship. Medscape specifically expressed a desire to collaborate by providing a broad platform for disseminating information regarding the highly impactful UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center Lay Navigator program. This program recruits and trains people to assist cancer patients by providing emotional support, tips to obtain financial aid and help with practical issues including appointments and transportation. Preliminary data have shown significant reduction of burden on the UAB Medicine system, including decreased ED visits, ICU admissions and overall hospitalization with a significant drop in costs per patient as well. Medscape has a platform to share this model for success across its network of 660,000 physician members and 64 million unique monthly users of WebMD, allowing others to study and potentially duplicate in order to meet the ongoing challenges of cancer patients across the country.
“These first collaborations with UAB Medicine happened organically, as a result of UAB’s standing as a world class medical center and a leader in scientific research, “ said Steve Zatz, M.D., president of WebMD. “We started with several individual projects but knew from the beginning we could build a strategic relationship that leveraged the strengths of both organizations. It is truly a whole system partnership, and we are committed to finding opportunities that benefit both parties as well as those we serve.”
| “Our partnership is built on a shared vision to impact healthcare and improve accountability through an ongoing dialogue to uncover opportunities to drive change. We now have a broad platform that highlights our ground-breaking clinical and research activities, new therapeutics and treatment strategies and advanced tools for assessments. It truly helps us deliver on our institutional commitment of ‘Knowledge that will change your world.’” |
“The Medscape collaboration offers us the opportunity to share information about the latest research, important innovations in treatment, and measures to enhance the quality of patient outcomes in neurological disorders,” said Standaert.
As follow up to the Partnership Introduction Day, the Medscape team is identifying opportunities that match the interests of their supporters and members and determining the greatest potential to leverage UAB Medicine’s expertise on a larger platform. This could include creation of partnerships, industry recognition for faculty, support for CME/CE certified courses, and specific education of Medscape’s supporters, clinician members and WebMD users. The next Partnership Introduction meeting is scheduled for February and will focus on oncology.
“We are thrilled about this unique partnership because it goes beyond a short-term relationship to garner support for CME/CE certified content,” said Selwyn Vickers, M.D., senior vice president for Medicine and dean of the UAB School of Medicine. “Our partnership is built on a shared vision to impact healthcare and improve accountability through an ongoing dialogue to uncover opportunities to drive change. We now have a broad platform that highlights our ground-breaking clinical and research activities, new therapeutics and treatment strategies and advanced tools for assessments. It truly helps us deliver on our institutional commitment of ‘Knowledge that will change your world.’”
As part of the extensive partnership with Medscape, UAB Medicine has also developed an exclusive landing page on Medscape that allows users to access the UAB Medicine’s CME activities, news, articles and resources. UAB Medicine faculty will be featured as experts on the landing page and content will be updated monthly. The Medscape partnership has the potential to generate recognition for faculty through expert content, thought-leader panels and speaking engagements, and can also serve to drive patients and referrals to UAB through Medscape’s extraordinary network for information sharing.