Rebecca Raszewski, MS, AHIP 
Associate Professor and Information Services & Liaison Librarian 
Library of the Health Sciences Chicago 
University of Illinois at Chicago 

AccessPediatrics from McGraw Hill is a portal of textbooks, review materials, and videos from neonatology up to adolescence. The content is geared primarily toward medical students, residents, fellows, and physicians. AccessPediatrics will also be useful for advanced practice nursing or physician assistant students and practitioners.   

Product Overview  

AccessPediatrics is similar in appearance to other McGraw Hill Medical resources and is updated daily. The major sections within AccessPediatrics are Books, Quick Reference, Drugs, Multimedia, Cases, Review Questions, Clerkship, and Patient Ed. The Books section contains around 40 books, including the textbook Rudolph’s Pediatrics, 23^rd edition, Kline (McGraw Hill, 2018) related to pediatrics; pediatric atlases; and Gomella’s Neonatology: Management, Procedures, On-Call Problems, Diseases, and Drugs, 8^th edition, Gomella et al. (McGraw Hill, 2020). Users can download book chapters as PDFs. There is also a site feature that will allow users to export to common citation managers. AccessPediatrics also includes an archived textbooks section. 

The Quick Reference section provides quick links to specific ebooks, neonatology guidelines, immunization schedules from the CDC, and 2 Minute Medicine: Pediatrics, which are curated medical reports from the health sciences literature with a pediatric focus. The Drugs section has drug monographs and specific links to generics, trade names, drug classes, and patient handouts. The Videos section is mostly organized by specialty. The Cases and Review Questions sections include links to specific ebooks that have this type of content. The Pediatrics Examination and Board Review ebook is the only one listed as CME eligible. The Clerkship section for medical students has links to cases, Step 2 or shelf exam prep Q&A, and textbook recommendations for further reading. The Patient Ed section has three major sections: an adult advisor, medicines advisor, and a pediatric advisor. Although this content is predominately in English, some patient education materials are included in Chinese (simplified and traditional), French, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.   

Features/Functionality  

It is recommended that users set up a MyAccess account so they can get alerts when new content is available, access cases and review questions, or customize patient handouts. Within one’s MyAccess account, users can see any content they have favorited and any recently viewed content. They can also create folders where they can organize content.  
 

AccessPediatrics uses a universal search box on its homepage so there is no separate Advanced Search option. Users can search within AccessPediatrics itself or select All Sites, which will search within all related McGraw Hill sites. AccessPediatrics will automatically suggest search terms, but will give the option of disabling the auto suggest feature. In the search results page, users can search the title, author, or ISBN or add in other search terms. Users can also use this page to filter results by specific formats, individual textbooks, or topics. The option to search by title, author, or ISBN, is now available in the query builder on the left side of the search results page. There is the also an option to filter by content format, textbook, and topic listed below the query builder. The AccessPediatrics search box will automatically “AND” search terms together. Although the AccessPediatrics’ search box does not support “OR” or “NOT,” quotation marks can be used for exact phrases. When All Sites is selected instead of just AccessPediatrics, results from similar McGraw Hill resources will appear in the search results. Under the availability filter, the available option can be selected to see the other content institutions subscribe to. 

Unlike AccessMedicine, there is no separate mobile app for AccessPediatrics; the platform uses responsive design to adjust to the users’ screen. In May 2021, McGraw Hill published Our Commitment to Accessibility detailing how they plan to build accessible content such as working on new content and software that would follow the Web Content Accessibility Devices version 2.1 AA guidelines (WCAG) and best practices. An accessible digital file version of a textbook can also be requested. McGraw Hill also participates in the AccessText Network, which focuses on providing textbooks in an electronic format for students with disabilities.   

McGraw Hill has created LibGuides that provide overviews of their resources and can also be incorporated into libraries’ LibGuides. Take a look at the AccessPediatrics LibGuide for more information, which provided helpful background information for this review. A feature I was not familiar with that I learned about from this guide was Content Maps, which matches AccessPediatrics’ content to “academic curriculum or professional specialty needs.” Related Content Maps are Attending Pediatric and Neonatal Physicians and Pediatric Nurse Practitioner.  There is also a way to create customized content maps for institutions. Another resource I learned about from the AccessPediatrics LibGuide is called Hypothes.is. Users can add this open source plug-in to their browser so they can annotate and highlight content on any platform or website.   

Business Model 
 

Free trials are offered for any institution interested in reviewing AccessPediatrics. Although McGraw Hill offers unlimited licenses for institutions, the license is a rental model. There is also an individual subscription option for which users pay $595.00 a year or select a 24-to-48-hour subscription pay-per-view option for short term access. McGraw Hill does offer MARC Records that are updated weekly and are also available in KBART format. McGraw Hill also mostly uses COUNTER 5 reporting for usage data.  

There are a few features I would like to see considered in the future for AccessPediatrics.  McGraw Hill should consider offering individual textbooks from this platform as a purchasing option for libraries. There should also be an option available for libraries to pay for seat licenses, which could be a more affordable option. I would also like to see AccessPediatrics expand upon its multimedia content by adding more videos and including podcasts. In AccessMedicine, there is a category in their textbooks for Health Systems, Quality, Safety, & Policy that focuses on healthcare systems and includes a book dedicated to vulnerable and underserved populations. I would like to see AccessPediatrics build a similar section that includes content on medically underserved communities and healthcare systems. Even though there are book chapters within AccessPediatrics that include these kinds of content, AccessPediatrics should make this content more visible. McGraw Hill should also consider expanding its continuing medical education content and include continuing education options for nurse practitioners and physician assistants. I would also like to see McGraw Hill integrate information on accessibility more easily within their platforms so users will better know how to view the platforms’ content through an accessible format. 

Breakthrough 

Overall, AccessPediatrics would be a complementary resource for institutions already subscribing to AccessMedicine. It would be a suitable resource for academic health centers and hospitals with pediatric residencies, clerkships, and nurse practitioner programs. AccessPediatrics is a user-friendly, multifaceted resource that will meet a wide variety of needs for various educational levels. 

On June 15, 2021, it was announced that McGraw Hill Education was acquired by Platinum Equity. It will be interesting to see if this will affect their licensing models and content development over the next few years.