Specialised Information Institutions

The German Institute for Medical Documentation and Information (DIMDI) in Cologne is a branch of the Federal Ministry for Health. Its mission is to make information from the entire area of life sciences available to the interested public. In addition, the DIMD publishes the German version of official classifications and nomenclatures and has established database-supported information systems for medication (as per the Medication Act), medical products (as per the Medical Products Act) and on the topic of health-related economic evaluation.

The German Central Library for Medicine (ZBMed) in Cologne is the central medical library for Germany. It is a member of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Association. It procures and collects scientific literature and other media on human medicine, the health care system and anthropology and makes these available.

The German Cochrane Centre in Freiburg represents the Cochrane Collaboration in Germany. The Cochrane Collaboration is a global network that produces and updates systematic reviews and provides them to a wide expert audience in electronic form. The reviews on globally available studies on the effectiveness of medical procedures represent an important link between clinical research and medical care. The German Cochrane Centre has been funded by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research since 1998.