Earlier this year I mentioned that Wolters Kluwer had reached an agreement to acquire UpToDate. Well according to this press release it is official. Wolters Kluwer has officially bought UpToDate, the terms were not disclosed. According to representatives of Berkery Noyes (who acted as UTD's exclusive financial adivsor in negotiations with WK), "With this acquisition, Wolters Kluwer is acquiring the dominant clinical solutions company with the leading market share among clinical users and a presence in 88% of teaching hospitals in the United States."

I think a lot of librarians will be watching how things shake out. I have to say that I am cautiously optomistic about this acquisition. Just a brief search on the MEDLIB-L Archive on UpToDate and you get an idea of the problems librarians have had with them.

My UpToDate/Wolters Kluwer wish list:

• Better relations with medical librarians
• Easier to understand pricing structure
• Reasonable pricing
• Off campus access included in the price
• Normal licensing
• Easy renewal (No counting of doctors, their specialties and whether or not their primary office address is the hospital's address.)

Funny my initial wish list doesn't even include any enhancements to the actual product. That just goes to show you how their customer service (or lack of) overshadowed the product in my mind.

Labels: Ovid, UpToDate, WoltersKluwer