Dear HIFA colleagues,
The PubMed website 'averages over 3.5 million users on a typical weekday who are coming from all over the world, from every continent, including Antarctica. Those users are conducting around 5.5 million searches every day in the PubMed web interface alone'. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/oet/ed/pubmed/08-23_oh-pubmed.html
The site is enormously important for the functionality of the global evidence ecosystem, yet it is vulnerable to politics. As a result of the recent US Government shutdown, the website includes the following notice:
'Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted. The NIH Clinical Center (the research hospital of NIH) is open. For more details about its operating status, please visit cc.nih.gov. Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at opm.gov.'
I do not think there is any imminent threat to the service, but would be interested to hear from our US colleagues about whether the website might in future be at risk in the event of any political decisions on its funding.
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org