BestBETs for Vets review shows global reach, narrow topic spread
CURRENT BRIEF VERSION: A 10-year review of BestBETs for Vets suggests the veterinary profession is still leaning on a relatively small, but globally used, evidence resource to answer day-to-day clinical questions. The study, published in Veterinary Record Open, analyzed 96 critically appraised topics, or CATs, across 27 topic areas and found canine medicine and reproduction were the most common subjects. Website analytics showed the database reached users in more than 190 countries, with most traffic coming from direct visits rather than search or referral channels. BestBETs for Vets is run by the University of Nottingham’s Centre for Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine as a free, point-of-care resource designed to support clinical decision-making. (nottingham.ac.uk)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the review highlights both the value and the limits of CAT databases in practice. BestBETs is built to provide quick, structured summaries of the best available evidence on focused clinical questions, and Nottingham explicitly positions it as a tool to inform, not dictate, care. That matters in a profession where time, literature access, and appraisal skills can all be barriers to evidence-based medicine. But CATs are also intentionally narrower and faster than full systematic reviews, which means they may miss some studies and need regular updating to stay useful. More broadly, CATs in other areas of medicine are often tailored to specific settings or problems rather than used as one-size-fits-all tools: a recent pharmacovigilance scoping review identified 18 causality assessment tools developed or updated between 2008 and 2023, including tools designed for drug-induced liver injury, severe cutaneous adverse reactions, pediatrics, neonatal intensive care, and vaccines, and noted growing interest in biomarkers to strengthen future assessments. In other words, the paper points to sustained global demand for concise evidence summaries, while also underscoring the workforce challenge of keeping those summaries current and expanding them into underrepresented species and topic areas.
What to watch: Watch for whether CEVM and other evidence-based medicine groups use these findings to prioritize new CAT topics, refresh older reviews, and build stronger links between CATs, quality improvement, and continuing education. The broader CAT literature also suggests future refinement may come from making tools more context-specific rather than simply adding volume. (nottingham.ac.uk)