A Review of AccessPharmacy
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Pamela Herring, MLIS, AHIP
Electronic Resources Librarian
Harriet F. Ginsburg Health Sciences Library
University of Central Florida College of Medicine

Content

AccessPharmacy is a pharmacy education product from McGraw-Hill Medical that provides access to pharmacy textbooks published by McGraw-Hill, an extensive multimedia library of animations and videos illustrating drug interactions and fundamental pharmacy concepts, drug therapy cases, self-assessment tools based on the database’s content, and an integrated drug database. The intended audience for this product is pharmacy students, pharmacy instructors, and practicing pharmacists.1 Terry L. Schwinghammer, PharmD, and Joseph T. DiPiro, PharmD, two top academic pharmacy experts, are on the advisory board for the database. They are also authors of a few of the books listed on the textbooks page.2

The content is delivered via a mobile-friendly website. If users are accessing the product through an institutional subscription, they can create a MyAccess account and have remote access from any location for 90 days by using their MyAccess login credentials.

Features/Functionality

AccessPharmacy has a basic search engine where users can type in keywords and get results divided into location categories such as books, quick reference, images, cases, etc. From there, users can click on a section and further narrow the search. It also has an advanced search option that allows users to focus their query by category from the start. Each title also boasts a search within the textbook feature, which was expected to be operational by the end of August 2016.

One of the nice features of this product is that it provides access to the recent previous editions of the textbooks. This is helpful, because if a course is using one of the textbooks on this platform and an updated edition is published in the middle of the course, students will have access to both.

Another great feature is the flashcards study tool. The database has four different types: flashcards that provide a review of pharmacotherapeutic concepts for major diseases, top 100 nonprescription flashcards, pharmacology flashcards for the boards, and pharmacy calculations flashcards. This tool requires a free MyAccess account.

AccessPharmacy has links to other McGraw-Hill Medical products (e.g., AccessMedicine, JAMAevidence, AccessPediatrics, etc.) on its site, but users cannot perform a search across all the linked resources. This actually makes sense, because some institutions may only subscribe to one product and if a search provided results from a site the institution did not subscribe to, the user would find it frustrating.

Business Model

The institutional subscription model for AccessPharmacy is site-wide, with access provided to the entire institution. The cost for this model is based on different factors, depending on the type of institution. For example, for corporations, cost is based on the number of users; for academic institutions, it is based on the number of students and residents in a medical or pharmacy school; for a hospital, pricing is based on staffed bed size. The content on AccessPharmacy is sold as one package, except for the ebook Pharmacotherapy Principles & Practice, which can be purchased separately. Discounts may be available if an institution subscribes to other McGraw-Hill Access products.

AccessPharmacy offers usage statistics reports that can be downloaded at any time from a secure site. The reporting site provides access to reports of all the McGraw-Hill products included in the institutional subscription. Users can download a report of a single product or multiple products. The report, called Institutional Product Activity, provides a “detailed listing of usage by product and resource.”3 The report offers a total of the “content access” and “search” encompassing the whole site, and then the total number of content access by month per resource.3 COUNTER reports have to be requested through the institution’s vendor representative.

McGraw-Hill also offers individual one-year subscription and pay-per-view options: $595 for one year, $34.65 for 24 hours, or $54.95 for 48 hours.4

Breakthrough

This product is great for schools that have a pharmacy program. With content and guidance from experts in the field, mobile friendly access, and easy navigation, AccessPharmacy is a valuable resource for faculty and students.

References

1. McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings L. About. Accesspharmacy. http://accesspharmacy.mhmedical.com/ss/about.aspx. Accessed August 22, 2016.
2. McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings L. Advisory board. Accesspharmacy. http://accesspharmacy.mhmedical.com/ss/AdvisoryBoard.aspx. Accessed August 22, 2016.
3. McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings L. McGraw-Hill education sitemaster. http://sitemaster.mhmedical.com/admin/login.aspx. Accessed August 22, 2016.
4. McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings L. Subscriptions. Accesspharmacy. https://store.mhmedical.com/subscriptionOptions.aspx?siteid=55. Accessed August 22, 2016.

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