WALTHAM, Mass.– Access to medical information in low-and-middle-income countries continues to hinder global health equity. To help meet this universal need, Wolters Kluwer Health and Smile Train, the world’s largest cleft-focused organization, are collaborating to bring full online access to select medical journals for Smile Train partners and affiliates globally. The vital resources will be available to Smile Train’s network of local clinicians through Wolters Kluwer’s Ovid® research platform.
With limited budgets, access to medical journals can be difficult for healthcare workers in low resource settings. Nearly 71% of Smile Train partners report that access to journal articles is a challenge they face when developing research. Additionally, 58% of partners note that access to journal information is a high priority for them in the development of cleft research. Through this initiative, care teams that may not have previously had access to key medical titles, like the New England Journal of Medicine, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and Journal of Craniofacial Surgery, now have instant access to help support healthcare programs around the world.
“Medical research continues to expand and grow, with more global contributions happening than ever before. Wolters Kluwer and Smile Train are both dedicated to increasing equity in access to medical literature and publications throughout the world,” said Rafael Sidi, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Health Research, Wolters Kluwer Health.
Smile Train is a nonprofit organization that has helped children in more than 70 countries, empowering local medical professionals with training, funding, and resources to provide free cleft surgery and comprehensive cleft care to children globally. The organization advances a sustainable and scalable global health model for cleft treatment, drastically improving children’s lives, including their ability to eat, breathe, speak, and ultimately thrive.
“As Smile Train embarks on its 25th year of supporting cleft care around the world, this collaboration is another transformative milestone in how we are able to impact patient outcomes,” said Susannah Schaefer, President and CEO of Smile Train. “Bringing timely, trusted medical information to all of our local health professionals allows them to help ensure that children with clefts have everything they need to thrive. We are thrilled to add these resources, which reinforce our commitment of providing safe, high-quality and free comprehensive cleft care to children globally.”
To help drive global health equity, consistent and trusted evidence must be available at the point of care, point of discovery, point of reference, and point of learning. Smile Train’s collaboration with Wolters Kluwer directly addresses the challenges surrounding access to clinical research and provides their partners with up-to-date research on best practices in their field. Access to these journals and the Ovid research platform will benefit Smile Train partners, affiliates, and staff in their work as well as in expanding research and clinical knowledge.
Ovid delivers thousands of full-text journal articles, eBooks, database resources, and workflow tools in a single integrated solution – making it the leading choice globally among clinicians, researchers, educators and students in the medical, scientific and academic fields.
