NowPatient Editorial Process

Medical content pipeline

Our content selection is based on our clinicians own practice experiences and wider industry trends. Medical content for production is selected by our panel of clinicians which includes pharmacists, doctors and other allied healthcare professionals. We aim to produce content that is meaningful and relevant to our users.

Content production

Once content has been accepted and identified for production, our in-house team of content writers get started on research. Our medical writers will only use high quality evidence-based clinical information sources to ensure integrity of content being produced. Our team of in-house content writers, all have scientific or medical backgrounds. We do not use non-medical writers in our content production workflows. Any advertising or potential conflicts of interest (e.g. Sponsorship) are clearly declared.

Medical review

Our medical review process focuses on clinical and scientific accuracy of content. At this stage, the pre-accepted content, is peer reviewed by a clinician. Depending on the content subject, we may use clinicians with certain specialities to do the review. Our medical review clinicians will check for clinical accuracy, and cross-reference sources of information used to produce the content. They will also check if the content affects people with “protected characteristics” (Equality Act 2010). This is relevant for UK users. In addition, they may propose changes if they believe the content could prove difficult for users who struggle to read or understand words and numbers.

Publish

We use fixed guidelines on where content is published on NowPatient. Our marketing team will submit the content for publication, as the last step. Once published, the marketing team will perform a quality check, to ensure that the content is surfaced as expected.

Cycle review

NowPatient has a cycle review as part of its editorial process. This means that all medical content is periodically reviewed. Typically this is every two years, however, in certain situations content may need immediate updating. Examples of situations include:

• New medical/clinical information that renders content no longer relevant
• A change in clinical guidelines
• A change in evidence bases
• A user complaint
• Requested by a professional body following an audit

Changes are controlled using change control procedures. Only a medical reviewer can raise a change control. Once the change is made, the content is updated. Any changes will appear on the article to show the ‘last updated’ date.