BestBETs for Vets review shows how clinicians use evidence tools
Bottom line
Veterinary researchers at the University of Nottingham have published a 10-year review of BestBETs for Vets, a critically appraised topic database designed to give clinicians quick, structured answers to focused clinical questions. The study, published in Veterinary Record Open in 2026, analyzed both the database’s content and website traffic over its first decade, offering a rare look at what veterinary professionals are actually searching for when they turn to evidence-based resources. BestBETs for Vets was launched in 2013 by Nottingham’s Centre for Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine as a free, practice-oriented database adapted from a human emergency medicine model. (bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the review is less about web metrics and more about clinical demand. BestBETs are built to answer narrow, real-world questions using structured literature searches and critical appraisal, with a “bottom line” clinicians can use quickly in practice. That matters in a profession where time, access to evidence, and confidence in appraising research remain persistent barriers to evidence-based veterinary medicine, and where experts increasingly argue that evidence needs to be integrated with contextualised care, including patient welfare, pet parent preferences, finances, and practice realities. (nottingham.ac.uk)
What to watch: The next question is whether tools like BestBETs for Vets can keep expanding in step with clinicians’ information needs, especially as the profession pushes for faster evidence synthesis that still fits real-world, contextualised decision-making. (bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
Key facts
- Study type
- 10-year descriptive review
- Database
- BestBETs for Vets
- Institution
- University of Nottingham
- Launch year
- 2013
- Publication
- Veterinary Record Open
- Publication year
- 2026
- Purpose
- Critically appraised topic database for focused clinical questions
- Scope
- Analyzed database content and website traffic over the first decade
A new 10-year review of BestBETs for Vets offers a window into how veterinary professionals use one of the field’s longest-running evidence summary tools. Published in Veterinary Record Open in 2026, the study examined both the content of the critically appraised topic database and user interactions over its first decade, aiming to understand what kinds of evidence resources clinicians seek in practice. The database, BestBETs for Vets, is a free evidence-based veterinary medicine resource built around focused clinical questions and concise appraisals of the available literature. (bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
That long view matters because BestBETs for Vets was created to address a practical gap. When the University of Nottingham’s Centre for Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine launched the site in December 2013, the stated goal was to give practising veterinarians access to short, practitioner-oriented evidence summaries that could support day-to-day decision-making. Nottingham described it at the time as the first veterinary database of its kind, adapted from the human medicine BestBETs model and paired with a second evidence resource, VetSRev. (nottingham.ac.uk)
BestBETs are intentionally narrow in scope. According to the Nottingham overview, each starts with a specific clinical question, then uses a structured literature search and critical appraisal process to reach a “bottom line.” The resource is designed to be quick to use, while also showing users how the answer was derived. Nottingham also notes the limits of the format: searches are systematic and repeatable, but they rely on two literature databases and do not include unpublished work, so some evidence may be missed. (nottingham.ac.uk)
The new review adds a usage layer to that methodological background. While the full article page available through Wiley is partially restricted, the abstract page indicates that the authors conducted a descriptive analysis of both database content and website analytics across the first 10 years of BestBETs for Vets. Search snippets from the article also point to substantial variation in traffic over time, including a spike in page views around late 2022 and early 2023, suggesting that demand for rapid evidence summaries may fluctuate with visibility, topic relevance, or broader shifts in how clinicians search for information. (bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
The study also lands in a broader conversation about what evidence-based veterinary medicine should look like now. Peter Cockcroft, writing in Veterinary Evidence, has argued that veterinary decision-making should not rely on published evidence alone, but should combine evidence with clinical expertise and patient values. More recent commentary and research in the same space have gone further, emphasizing “contextualised care,” where decisions are shaped not only by evidence and welfare considerations, but also by continuity of care, financial constraints, regulatory pressure, and the circumstances of the pet parent and practice team. (veterinaryevidence.org)
That context is important for interpreting a paper about a CAT database. Evidence summaries are useful only if they meet clinicians where they are: busy, often time-limited, and making decisions in imperfect conditions. Prior work in Veterinary Evidence has identified familiar barriers to evidence-based veterinary medicine in practice, including limited time, limited access to databases, difficulty appraising study quality, and challenges applying published findings to individual cases. Other research has found that practitioners value evidence-based approaches, but still adapt them within the realities of each patient, each pet parent, and each consultation. (veterinaryevidence.org)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the BestBETs review is a reminder that evidence infrastructure itself deserves scrutiny. Knowing which topics are published, which are searched, and how often they are used can help educators, researchers, and publishers identify where clinical uncertainty is most persistent. It may also help the profession decide where faster evidence synthesis is most needed, whether through CATs, knowledge summaries, or other point-of-care tools. In a clinical environment where evidence-informed care increasingly has to coexist with contextualised care, that kind of usage data can help align research translation with real practice needs. (bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
What to watch: The next phase will likely be less about whether clinicians want concise evidence summaries, and more about how those summaries evolve, including topic coverage, update frequency, discoverability, and integration with newer clinical decision-support tools. (bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)