A Library Curated Pediatric COVID-19 CME and Clinical Decision Support Center

Background: The rapid pace of publication regarding SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) left physicians and researchers grasping for access to accurate, clinically significant information to aid in patient care. Serving as the medical library for a multistate pediatric health system, including 40 primary care practices, pediatricians rely on our services to cut through the clutter and provide evidence-based clinical decision support. Our medical system also provides world class pediatric continuing medical education (CME) related activities for internal and external users. The medical library sought to leverage our relationship with CME to create a curated, bi-weekly updated COVID-19 pediatric clinical and practice support resource center.

Description: Hospitals and primary care practices are facing a constantly evolving health crisis, reevaluating the practice of medicine, pivoting towards telemedicine, altering appointment structures, and working with the CARES act to obtain PPE and financial support. Utilizing an evolving PubMed search, we evaluate new articles on a daily basis to add to our site. Article decisions are based on several factors, including: new information, accessibility, stability of DOI, and article type. Systematic reviews, reviews and research studies are given precedence over viewpoints, correspondence and commentary. The literature selected directly addresses knowledge gaps particular to pediatrics, continually identifying constantly evolving updates to patient care standards by highlighting articles that are particular to: MIS-C, Vaccines, Academic Medicine, and Practice Changing Updates. Utilizing CME site metrics, we experienced consistent growth with 5,908 hits from April through December 2020, averaging 490 unique users per month.

Conclusion: As hospitals became overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and protocols, the medical literature underwent explosive growth. A basic search of (SARS-CoV-2 OR COVID-19) AND pediatric age keywords, limited to English, provides 12,390 results limited to the 2020 calendar year. We sought to create a central location with curated, free articles to answer clinical questions and support practice changes throughout the pandemic. Leveraging the flexibility and reach of our health system’s CME conference portal to deliver a central location for pediatric-centric COVID-19 literature provided an alternative means to earn CME for clinicians while growing the medical library’s organizational footprint. Future research is necessary to see if CME relationships are applicable as a marketing tool for physicians outside of a health crisis.