The TRIP Database began in 1997 as a result of the work of the founders (Jon Brassey and Dr Chris Price) in answering clinical questions, using the principles of evidence based medicine. One of the remits of answering the clinical questions was to return them in a clinically relevant time frame. As well as being quick the clinical questions needed to be answered using the best available evidence. Therefore, to identify the best evidence involved moving from website to website in order to identify relevant material. If each site took 5 minutes to search and 12 websites were examined it added an hour to the search time.
If all the content were searchable at one website it would significantly improve the search time. Initially, a manual search of each evidence-based site was undertaken with titles, URL and year of publication recorded in a spreadsheet. Shortly afterwards a chance conversation led to the spreadsheet being converted to a crude web-based search engine.
Since then it has grown significantly in terms of ease of use, coverage and popularity. The aims of the TRIP Database have remained the same since 1997 - allow health professionals to easily find the highest-quality material available on the web - to help support evidence based practice. The TRIP Database is produced by TRIP Database Ltd (for more information on TRIP Database Ltd see below).
The evolution of the TRIP Database has been guided by the desire to answer real clinical questions using the principles of evidence based medicine. TRIP Database Ltd’s involvement in clinical question answering (for more information see TRIP Knowledge Services) has shown the type of material that is useful in answering genuine questions health professionals have. More recently the site has been externally evaluated by a team from the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (www.cebm.net) led by Professor Paul Glasziou. The findings of this report have been very useful in this latest site upgrade.
For approximately 4 years the TRIP Database became a subscription service which ended in September 2006. This allowed for a dramatic improvements in the site. However, it also significantly restricted use. This relative lack of use led to a degree of frustration (a great product being under-used) therefore a new business model was sought and found.
About TRIP Database Limited
TRIP Database became incorporated in 2001 and this has allowed the directors (Jon Brassey and Dr Chris Price) to expand and develop the site as well as providing a spring-board for new knowledge services (see TRIP Knowledge Service for more information). We currently provide services to a large number of UK and overseas organistations.
