PHILADELPHIA, May 10, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Elsevier (http://www.elsevier.com/), a world leader in health care and medical publishing and online solutions, today announced that the Cleveland Clinic Center for Continuing Education (http://www.clevelandclinicmeded.com/) will provide point-of-care Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit to users of MD Consult (http://www.mdconsult.com/) and First Consult ( http://www.firstconsult.com/).

Our dedication to providing a wide array of first-rate CME opportunities to medical professionals throughout the world will be further advanced through this relationship with Elsevier's MD Consult and First Consult, said William D. Carey, M.D., Director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Continuing Education. We have one of the largest and most diverse CME programs anywhere, and we're looking forward to bringing CME credit to MD Consult and First Consult users.

Users of First Consult, which provides instant access to information on evaluation, diagnosis, clinical management, prognosis and prevention, and MD Consult, a clinical reference tool utilized by more than 2000 healthcare organizations and 95 percent of all U.S. medical schools, will earn Point-Of-Care CME Credit as they perform searches and access relevant content to answer patient care questions.

The Cleveland Clinic's validated CME content will bring a truly unique, individualized learning experience to the hundreds of thousands of MD Consult users around the world, said Randy Charles, Managing Director, Global Clinical Reference, Elsevier. Within the daily workflow, as they use clinical content to support diagnosis and treatment, physicians will be able to click a button and receive CME accredited by one of the world's leading healthcare institutions.

After performing a search and finding the answer in MD Consult's breadth of clinical content, physicians can then click on Request CME and complete a short form from the Cleveland Clinic Center for Continuing Education, which is accredited at the highest level (with commendation) by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME)( http://www.accme.org/) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. By submitting this short form, physicians can earn 0.5 American Medical Association PRA (Physician's Recognition Award) Category 1 Credit(s)(TM) for each search conducted through MD Consult and First Consult.

With point-of-care CME credits, physicians can apply for CME credit with ease, speed, convenience and no disruption in their workflow, Charles said. Physicians will be pleased to know that their searches for timely, evidence-based clinical content can now qualify for CME credit. MD Consult subscribers perform more than 1.7 million searches per month.

Physicians are turning increasingly to the Internet for clinical information: 86 percent of U.S. physicians now use the Internet to gather health, medical or prescription drug information, according to a November 2009 survey commissioned by Google. A 2009 Manhattan Research survey put the number at 89 percent, and one-third of physicians have claimed that they changed a patient's treatment as the result of an Internet search. Instead of relying on the unproven information available widely on the Internet, Elsevier sees physicians gravitating more to the evidence-based clinical content provided by online tools such as MD Consult and First Consult.

Elsevier's MD Consult delivers instant access to full-text articles from more than 80 medical journals and Clinics, 50 medical references across a range of specialties, clinically relevant drug information, and more than 10,000 patient handouts in English and Spanish. Elsevier's First Consult offers an online database on patient evaluation, diagnosis, treatment, tests and prevention, interactive access to potential diagnoses and video and animated guidance on common medical procedures.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet (http://www.thelancet.com) and Cell (http://www.cell.com), and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com), Scopus (http://www.scopus.com), Reaxys (http://www.reaxys.com), MD Consult (http://www.mdconsult.com) and Nursing Consult (http://www.nursingconsult.com), which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite (http://www.scival.com) and MEDai's Pinpoint Review (http://www.medai.com), which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier ( http://www.elsevier.com) employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC (http://www.reedelsevier.com), a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

Contact: Tom Reller, Vice President, Global Corporate Relations, Elsevier, +1-215-239-3508, T.Reller@Elsevier.com .

SOURCE: Elsevier

CONTACT: Contact: Tom Reller, Vice President, Global Corporate Relations,Elsevier, +1-215-239-3508, T.Reller@Elsevier.com .