QMed Knowledge Foundation: A Unique Change Making Not-for-Profit Organization in India

The problem in India that we address: 

In India, students and professionals of all health science streams often waste hours, searching for literature and evidence. Time that could be better spent in actual research, learning and practice. This is because systematic training to find updates and evidence is not part of the health sciences curriculum. 

Health care delivery, especially diagnosis and treatment, have to be based on what works best for a major population, or what is termed “the best evidence”. Health professionals need to know how to find the best evidence – evidence that emerges from systematically done research.

This needs a comprehensive understanding of the various information resources as well as a complete understanding of how to search systematically. On the surface, it’s logical to believe that these skills would be taught as part of the health sciences curriculum. However, they are, even now, barely covered or often neglected.

This means that approximately 500,000 medical students, 100,000 postgraduate students and around 900,000 doctors, plus a large number of other health professionals could waste time due to inadequate knowledge of searching. And if a majority of them get these skills that would lead not only to a lot of human-resource time saved, but it also will lead to better health care research outputs.

So what has QMed done about this?

In a nutshell, QMed helps students and professionals save hours of precious time. And it assists them in establishing a solid basis for academics, research, and evidence-based practice.

Since April 2008, we have trained health sciences students, faculty, practitioners and researchers in the art of structured online searching and referencing. Ms Vasumathi Sriganesh has delivered more than 530 lectures (more recently webinars) at various events. QMed has also conducted more than 260 workshops since 2008.  Ms Vasumathi is recognized by the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences and the Maharashtra Medical Council as a speaker. Her speaker code is MMC/MASS/00030/2016. In 2013, she also won an International Award for the work she did through QMed.

In 2018 we launched our courses online. And in 2020 we revamped these and have made them available to institutions and individuals. The courses are available at www.qmedcourses.in In the first year after the revamp, we enrolled over 4800 individuals. In June 2021, we also added to this website, a library of resources useful for literature searching, writing and more reading, related to health sciences research and education.

We believe that our online courses should be available to undergraduate students of all health sciences streams. In fact they should be made mandatory for them. Our experience has been that this group learns very quickly. And if they are trained at this stage, then they are better prepared for their PG theses and of course life long, for academics, research and practice.

We also guide participants of our online courses in carrying out a “step by step search process” when they author a systematic review. It is mandatory for systematic review authors to do these, to ensure that they have not missed any study

A dream – We hope that in the future, we can help the public to also do meaningful Internet searches, to be more equipped with knowledge about their health conditions and have the right dialogues with their doctors for better healthcare

Database of lectures delivered          Database of workshops conducted          International Award

QMed’s Vision
Health care services to society will be based on the effective utilization of the best available current evidence from systematic research.
QMed’s Mission
To enable health professionals, institutions, patients and health consumers working in the health care sector, to obtain the best evidence from systematic research, in order to ensure accurate delivery and availability of optimal health care services.
Trust Registration and Other Details

Page last checked / updated on 1-Mar-2024