Baylor pediatricians to lend expertise to Medscape Consult

HOUSTON -- March 13, 2017 -- Baylor College of Medicine and Medscape, a leading source of medical news and information for physicians, today announced a collaboration that will connect Baylor College of Medicine pediatricians with physicians using Medscape Consult, a  global peer-to-peer, point-of-care digital platform for sharing cases, asking questions and engaging with colleagues about clinical observations and discoveries. 

Baylor’s pediatric experts will serve as Medscape Consult editors, providing insight, responses and replies to physicians’ questions about complex clinical concerns related to infancy, childhood and adolescence, unusual or difficult de-identified patient cases, as well as emerging pandemics that affect children, such as Zika. Dr. Ricardo Quiñonez, associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and section head and service chief of pediatric hospital medicine at Texas Children’s Hospital, will serve as editor-in-chief and oversee a team of senior faculty, junior faculty and fellows from across pediatric specialties.

“Physicians everywhere are confronting a host of new clinical challenges in a rapidly changing environment,” Quiñonez said. “They need to connect with colleagues and get advice and answers quickly. At Baylor and Texas Children’s, we have the perspective of seeing some of the most difficult pediatric cases from around the world. Through our Medscape Consult partnership, we can offer our colleagues the knowledge and insights gained through that experience.”

Hundreds of thousands of physicians have leveraged Medscape’s crowdsourcing platform since its 2015 launch, and pediatricians are among its most active users. In November 2015, a Consult pediatrician from Brazil was among the first to voice concern over a spike in infants born with microcephaly and a possible link to the Zika virus. This early alert to an emerging worldwide health issue (announced by the Centers for Disease Control weeks later) demonstrates the potential of the global Consult physician community.

“It is a privilege to partner with the physicians at Baylor College of Medicine,” said Dr. Steve Zatz, CEO of WebMD/Medscape. “Physicians are increasingly relying on digital platforms to get the information they need to keep up with the pace of practice. This new partnership strengthens our commitment to ensuring that Medscape Consult provides clinical information that is evidence-based and clinically useful within an engaged and growing global community of physicians.”