TAKEN FOR GRANTED

Imagine you desire to talk to another person instantly but they are not near you. Before the telephone the concept was IMPOSSIBLE. Before the cellphone the concept was impractical. Now it is indispensible. Do you now expect to have a cellphone and do you now expect that others have a cellphone? That is TAKEN FOR GRANTED.

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is the integration of best research evidence, clinical expertise, and patient values in healthcare decision making. Before the best research evidence was instantly accessible EBM at the point of care was impractical -- it could be done in an academic setting for establishing examples but you could not expect practicing physicians to use EBM for most clinical questions they encountered.

I am one of tens of thousands of people contributing to making EBM possible. In this work we SUPPORT and help millions of people, but one of the most significant impacts (the LASTING IMPACT) will be to make it so that EBM at the point of care is TAKEN FOR GRANTED.

DynaMed is the cellphone in EBM -- that is GREAT.

DYNAMED PLUS is the smartphone in EBM -- that is EXCEPTIONAL.

What next? The Internet of things? We are almost there (with a cosmic view of time) -- I look forward to the time when we no longer see it as EXCEPTIONAL and EBM at the point of care is TAKEN FOR GRANTED.

Even better -- "EBM" at the point of healthcare decision making -- where the integration of patient values with best research evidence and clinical expertise is SHARED with the patient actively engaged, informed, empowered -- and when we change our language to easier terms to understand -- "evidence-based" becomes "well-informed" and we reach Well-Informed Shared Decision Making, or we reach WISDM.