This database is designed for hospital clinicians who want to integrate the best available evidence with their own personal skills and expertise to improve the care of their patients. In keeping with this, each topic covered in Evidence-based On Call provides not a cookbook of what to do, but a series of recommendations about issues to consider when caring for your patients.

The site comprises two sections:  Guides and CATs, which can be accessed via the orange tabs along the top of this page.

CATs form the basis of all our material. A CAT is a Critically Appraised Topic, i.e. a summary of the evidence contained in a medical journal article. In order to maintain consistency, we have strictly defined the structure of our CATs.  Occasionally this can make them look a bit strange (for example a '?' where the original article fails to specify something that our CAT structure requires) but the advantage is that you can be sure we haven't missed anything important. For more information about CATs, see the CATbank pages on the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine web site.

Guides provide bullet-point recommendations on the diagnosis and management of a range of on-call conditions. Each guide is divided into sections, such as diagnosis, therapy, prognosis, etc. Each section is made up of a series of recommendations, with information on the levels of evidence supporting them. Where we have provided further information or a summary of the evidence, this is indicated by an icon , linked to another page. We have also provided links to the supporting evidence:  each CAT icon links to a Critically Appraised Topic. When you have finished viewing a CAT or additional information page, simply use the Back button in your browser. To move to another section, click on its name.

This database doesn't

• tell you how to manage your patient. We have indicated the best management for most patients, but reckon only you (using your clinical expertise) and your patient (inputting their ideas and values) can decide what the best path to take might be.
• give all the answers. We have given an outline on how to manage each condition, but we have not covered the nuances of management; rather we view this website as an aide-memoire, and decision support tool.
• do pathophysiology. We have specifically looked only for outcomes that mean something to patients, in the hope that these will remain relatively constant, unlike scientific theory.
• make arbitrary recommendations. If we cannot find any evidence, we say so; and only make a recommendation if clinical expedience demands that something be done.
• guarantee drug doses – we have tried extremely hard to give accurate information for a typical adult patient, but encourage you to check your local formulary for more information.

This database does give

• some useful facts and figures that can help you manage your patient more effectively.
• some idea about the quality of the evidence for common clinical interventions.