Tips to get you started with Best Practice

1. Search

The Best Practice search function includes a number of features that narrow down your search results and ensures that the most relevant results are returned.

A free-text ‘Search Best Practice’ box appears on every page.  You can type a keyword (such as ‘fever’, ‘asthma’ or ‘ECG’) into the search box to find pages that relate to a specific symptom, diagnosis or treatment.

• As you start typing, suggestions will automatically appear to help you find what you are looking for more quickly.
• The Best Practice search engine will return results for synonyms of the topic/s or term/s entered into the search box.
• The Best Practice search functionality will remove common suffixes, such as “-ize”, “-ing”, “-s”, “-es” etc. So, a search for 'bleeding' will also find 'bleed', and vice versa.
• When searching by symptom or sign, it is recommended that you use a maximum of two predominant signs or symptoms in your search to return a full list of search results.
• When searching for more than one term, you do not need to type AND in between each, as 'and' is automatically implied.
• If you want to return results containing just one of several terms type OR between each term. It's important that you use all caps when typing OR otherwise your request will not be recognised.
• When searching for specific phrases include double quote marks ("") around each phrase, e.g. ' "shortness of breath" OR "chest pain" '.
• You can refine your search results for 'All results' by clicking on the specific tabs for 'Conditions', 'Diagnosis', 'Treatment', 'Evidence', 'Drug database', or 'Guidelines'.

2. Browse

Alternatively, you can browse for a known condition by clicking on the ‘Show conditions’ link. If you want help diagnosing a patient presenting with a clinical problem such as a specific symptom or laboratory finding, then the ‘Assessments’ topics are a useful place to start.

Best Practice also contains a number of ‘Overviews’ that provide information for groups of related conditions.

3. What’s new & updated

Best Practice is continuously updated, with every topic reviewed at least once annually. A list of the 50 most recently added or updated monographs is accessible via the Best Practice homepage to ensure you are alerted to the latest evidence, opinion and information as soon as it becomes available.

4. Personalisation

Best Practice contains numerous features which allow you to enhance and personalise the content to fit your local requirements. It only takes a few moments to register for a ‘My Best Practice’ account and you can start saving your searches, annotating pages and bookmarking favourite topics.

5. How to set up a ‘My Best Practice’ account

Click on ‘My Best Practice’ while you are within the computer range of your organisation to set up your own personal account. You will be prompted to enter your email address. If you already have a BMJ account set up for any other BMJ products, your ‘My Best Practice’ account will be set up automatically using your existing details.  If not, you will be asked to complete a simple registration form. It will only take you a few minutes, and you are ready to go: start saving your searches, annotating pages, and bookmarking favourite topics