I’m just back from a meeting of KConnect, an EU funded consortium bringing together academia, SMEs and care providers with a view to improving health care.  This is the 3rd meeting in two months and thankfully this one was in London (the others being in Luxembourg and Vienna).

There was lots of exciting developments and the following apply to Trip:

Answer engine.  The answer engine is a system designed to infer questions from a users search terms and pull through the best answer (as well as the usual search results). We have a proof of concept model, which is great. However, there are a few issues with it.  A few conversations with consortia members and it looks like that will be fixed fairly easily.  With the prototype I estimate we got between 50-60% right and with the new tweaks, when they’re rolled should see that rise to over 80%.

The answer engine relies on being able to match search queries to articles.  That needs us to accurately reduce document titles down to medical concepts.  We should now be able to do this more accurately, more quickly and it’ll give us lots more flexibility with how we display the results.

Search log analysis.  I typically refer to this as clickstream data, but search log analysis appears the favoured term.  A new feature that we’ll be rolling out relates to search refinement and this will manifest itself in two ways:

• During search.  We currently have a drop-down list of suggestions, supplied via PubMed.  However, it’s very ‘dry’ and never feels particularly ‘human’.  By using real-life data from Trip we’re confident that our system will be more real for our users.
• Post-search.  Users typically only search using 1-2 terms.  This system can be used to suggest additional terms to bring the user closer to the results they need.

Below is a list of query suggestions based on a search for hypertension:

• 976 hypertension pulmonary
• 715 hypertension arterial
• 694 hypertension treatment
• 572 hypertension pregnancy
• 439 hypertension diabetes
• 401 hypertension stroke
• 248 hypertension exercise

So, if you’ve search for hypertension we might show the above and say, something like ‘are you interested in hypertension pulmonary, hypertension arterial etc.  A user clicking on a search phrase will see the search automatically undertaken.

This should be rolled out shortly and we’ll test it to ensure it actually improves things!

Algorithm changes. Already planned from my visit to Vienna but further refinement of the specification which will see us trying multiple tweaks – in isolation and in combination – to try to ensure an optimal new search algorithm.

There are a few other bits and bobs that significantly affect Trip’s future development – but these are outside of KConnect and therefore can wait for another post.  But, rest assured, these changes are all ambitious and doable!

In the registration process there is a section for ‘Institutions’:

This is optional and can be ignored.  But it does serve two purposes, should you not ignore it:

1. Better links to full-text.  If you are at an institution that subscribes to journals we can use something called a link resolver to link from Trip directly to your institutions full-text (as opposed to the PubMed abstract.  This is a powerful feature but does require a link resolver.  To find out if your institution has one – ask in the library.
2. Premium membership. If the institution purchases a premium account it can be used to connect users to the premium content/features.

But, to repeat, this can be ignored, it is not essential for your registration.

It’s always an exciting time when we release the new site and this time is no different.  In fact, I tend to get more excited, as the site gets better and better.  So, what’s new?

A beautiful new design which has been based on a in-depth analysis of user activity on the site.  So, similar functions are better grouped together.

Three new extra languages supported in Trip.  These allow users to search in their own language and see results in their own language.  Feedback has clearly demonstrated that query formulation is the hardest translational activity for non-native English speakers.  The ability to search in your own language is a real boost.  The new languages are Spanish, Hungarian and Swedish.  These sit alongside French, German and Czech.  This language support has been made possible by our inclusion in the EU-funded, Horizon 2020, KConnect project.

We’ve also added two new categories of results:

• Regulatory guidance which includes NICE, IQWiG, SMC and new content to Trip – FDA and EMA drug evaluations.
• Ongoing systematic review, via PROSPERO.

We have also created a filter for articles on Overdiagnosis.  Once you’ve searched you just click the button and we return documents on overdiagnosis and overtreatment.

We have noticed, from our analysis of site usage, that the ability to refine initial search results by clinical area is really popular.  So, we’ve promoted it to make it more prominent.  It’s another way to refine your results so it now sits alongside ‘refine by evidence type’.

Other highlights include:

• Renaming of ‘Trip Premium’ to ‘Trip Pro’
• Simplified the functionality around each article e.g. tweet this, starring etc.
• Functions such as search history, login are all consistent and grouped together.
• A further simplification has been the different evidence types.  This has meant that patient information is now included in the main search leaving the ‘Pro’ content of Videos and Images available from just above the search results.
• Creation of an explorer function (again located at the top of the search results) which was previously called the search safety net.  At the time of typing this is still being copied over to the new site so won’t be live till later today/tomorrow!

Finally, mobile is increasingly important way of users accessing Trip and as part of the redesign we have significantly enhanced our mobile offering.