J. Michael Lindsay, MSIS, MBA
Head of Collections & Access Services
Preston Medical Library
University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine

This is an update of a review I wrote that was published in the March 2020 issue of Doody’s Collection Development Monthly. You can find the original review here.

The primary audience for AccessAnesthesiology remains advanced health sciences students, specifically medical students and residents, but it is also intended for use by practicing anesthesiologists preparing for recertification. Textbook content can be filtered to “CME eligible” materials, which currently yields 10 books with relevant materials. The product has also expanded its intended audience to include CRNAs and candidates for Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice with the addition of new foundational materials and review content.

Content

New content continues to be added to the product. It is worth noting that as the web platform for McGraw Hill’s medical textbooks continues to grow, the newest content will be added to AccessAnesthesiology when it becomes available. AccessAnesthesiology now hosts 55 core textbooks, over 800 videos, and 7,500 questions in the interactive board review. Among the most recent additions are Morgan & Mikhail’s Clinical Anesthesiology, 7th Edition, Butterworth et al. (2022), and Hall, Schmidt and Wood’s Principles of Critical Care, 5th Edition, Schmidt and Kress (2023). In advance of full publication, content for several books has been added/updated or is expected to be added soon, including Manual of Emergency Obstetrics Anesthesia (2024), After the ICU: Multidisciplinary Perspective on Supporting Critical Illness Survivors (fall 2023), and Anesthesiology Core Review, parts one and two (2024). For CRNAs, 791 review question Q&As have been added from the Certification Review for Nurse Anesthesia, Burns (2015). There has been a recent push to provide content maps across the Access sites to relevant specialty curricula; in Anesthesiology, these include content maps for the Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice Curriculum and the Anesthesiologist Assistant Education Program.

The new content additions help cement the continued relevance of this collection for its main audience, but should also increase the appeal of the product to CRNAs and others.

Features & Functionality

While most aspects of the search function remain the same, users can now employ a basic form of set building. By using the Add Term link directly below the Keyword search box, additional terms can be added with “AND” to yield more customized results than were previously possible. Additional work has also gone into improving the user experience regarding quizzes, video, and audio content. The platform now features a more up-to-date video player that provides transcripts for videos, which can be used to navigate and allows users to download videos. An updated streaming audio solution has also been integrated into the Access platform, improving performance for audio.

Business Model

The business model remains unchanged from my original review. Institutional pricing is not published but is negotiated through sales representatives. Prices have increased steadily, but not outside the norm for electronic subscription-based products in the health sciences. Individual subscriptions and short-term pay-per-view access pricing is unchanged from the previous review.

Breakthrough

This product remains a vital resource for institutions supporting anesthesiology residency programs and for practicing anesthesiology practitioners. Adding more materials for CRNAs has only broadened the appeal of AccessAnesthesiology: going beyond providing valuable foundational support to assisting nurse anesthetists in obtaining certification.