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Healia PubMed/Medline Search is a search engine specifically designed to help consumers find information in the PubMed/Medline dataset in a user-friendly way. Healia PubMed/Medline Search retrieves abstracts (published summaries) of journal articles.

Healia’s PubMed search (currently in beta) might be one of the best interfaces available for clinicians who don’t have the search skills to effectively search PubMed through its native interface.

Some notable features:

Automatic “AND”
By default, Healia inserts a boolean “AND” between all search terms (as Google does). While the expert searcher might find this unpleasantly limiting, it is a familiar behavior for many clinical searchers who view Google as their ideal, preferred search interface.

Sorting
Healia will allow the user to sort search results by date or by relevance. I’d love to know more about how Healia’s relevance sorting works- because it appears to work well (although a search for “ulcerative colitis” probiotics sorted by relevance at Healia is quite different from the same search sorted by relevance at ReleMed).

Filters and Limits
Healia’s interface is able to refine a search with most of the same facets as PubMed’s “Limits” tabwith Healia’s “Filters,” “Advanced Search,” and “Tabs” (see screen captures below).

Above: Healia Pubmed Filters

Above: Healia PubMed Advanced Search

Above: Healia PubMed Tabs

Acronym Expansions and Suggested Search Terms
Healia’s Acronym Expansion and Suggested Search Terms appear to work well. I’ve previously mentioned that PubMed doesn’t map “HRT” to anything (see this PubMed search), while ReleMed successfully maps “HRT” to (hormone replacement therapy) OR (hormone replacement therapies) OR hrt OR (hormone replacement rx). Healia expands “HRT” to “hormone replacement therapy” and suggests search terms of “hormone therapy” and “estrogen replacement therapy” (see this Healia search for details).

Other features of Healia’s PubMed search are detailed here.

Also worth checking out: Healia has a search interface for NIH Clinical Trials you can try here. Details about Healia Clinical Trials Search are available here.

Other posts about Third-Party PubMed/MEDLINE Tools

• CureHunter Visual Medical “Dictionary” (MeSH Browser)
• PubViz (3rd-party PubMed/MEDLINE Tool Prototype)
• Almost Everything About HubMed (Third-party PubMed Tool)
• Verbs in MEDLINE Searches & MEDIE (Third-Party PubMed Tool)
• MLA News: Third-Party PubMed Tools
• Pmid.us (Third-Party PubMed Tool)
• ExpertMapper (Third-Party PubMed Tool)
• Twease (Third-party PubMed Tool)
• Article on eTBLAST (Third-party PubMed Tool)
• CILIP HLG Newsletter on Third-Party PubMed Tools
• Ali Baba (3rd Party PubMed tool)
• FABLE (3rd Party PubMed Tool)
• Managing Medical Literature on a Mac: iPapers, Papers, Sente, BibDesk
• Notes on ReleMed
• MeshPubMed.org
• PubMed Gold
• PubMed Reader
• For MedLibs who use Macs: iPapers
• PubMed2Connotea / PubMed2CiteULike
• More notes on BioWizard (Digg for Medical Literature, Part 3.5)
• More Alternate PubMed interfaces via Journalology
• BioWizard Enhancements: ‘Digg for Medical Literature’ Part III (Edited)
• Authoratory
• Some Alternative Interfaces and Mashups for MedLibs
• LitMiner
• PubFocus
• BioWizard: The start of ‘Digg for Medical Literature’?
• Article on HubMed