DynaMed vs OpenEvidence (2026)
Both answer a clinician's question at the point of care, and they are paid for in opposite ways. DynaMed is EBSCO's edited reference, built under a stated seven step evidence method with daily literature surveillance and sold by subscription. Its AI layer, Dyna AI, answers only from DynaMed's own content, labels what it generates and links each answer to its origin. OpenEvidence is free to verified US and Canadian clinicians because pharmaceutical and device advertising runs inside the product. It answers from the medical literature under partnerships with the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Cochrane and others, and it runs inside the record at named health systems. The choice is between a reference with no advertising and an AI first search funded by it.
- No advertising and no data selling, stated on the Dyna AI page; subscriptions pay for the content.
- Dyna AI answers only from DynaMed's own edited content and labels what it generates.
- An ISO 27001 certificate covering DynaMed by name, downloadable from EBSCO's trust page.
- Free use for verified US and Canadian clinicians, with no procurement step.
- Answers from the literature under named partnerships with the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and Cochrane.
- Peer reviewed studies of its citations, including one that found no fabricated reference among 4,979 checked.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. DynaMed and OpenEvidence are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | DynaMed | OpenEvidence |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Clinical Reference & Evidence | Clinical Reference & Evidence |
| Founded | Not recorded | 2021 |
| Headquarters | Ipswich, Massachusetts | Miami, Florida |
| Website | dynamed.com | openevidence.com |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Product updates
The latest logged changes from each vendor, newest first, each linked to its source.
OpenEvidence
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Product / capability
OpenEvidence launched Patient Take-Homes, a new feature allowing clinicians to optionally turn AI-generated answers into educational materials for their patients.
Source -
Clinical evidence
A systematic review published in npj Digital Medicine evaluated 11 studies assessing OpenEvidence's clinical question-answering capabilities.
Source -
Product / capability
OpenEvidence integrated Springer Nature's medical content into its platform, expanding the peer-reviewed literature available to ground its AI responses.
Source
Each vendor in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph opens the AI Health Index profile of the vendor: what the product is, who buys it and what it does.
Point of care disease reference from EBSCO Clinical Decisions, part of EBSCO Information Services. Content rests on a stated seven step evidence based methodology with daily systematic literature surveillance, edited by a named clinical team.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
AI medical search and clinical decision support used at the point of care, free to verified United States and Canadian clinicians and funded by pharmaceutical and medical device advertising shown inside the product, with enterprise deployments embedded in the electronic health record at named health systems. The published model family is Osler for direct answers in seconds, Sackett for a more thorough survey.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Questions buyers ask
How do DynaMed and OpenEvidence work with the EHR?
The practicing clinicians page describes DynaMed Decisions tools that surface guideline recommendations based on each patient's data. Across the product line the named methods include embedded links, search box widgets, the HL7 Infobutton context retrieval API, a web services API, single sign on and a mobile app; Infobutton is the standard built for surfacing reference content in context from inside the record.
With OpenEvidence, the first party evidence is recent. On 22 September 2026 the company and the University of Texas Medical Branch announced a collaboration putting cited clinical evidence inside the electronic health record, live at UTMB since March 2026, with adoption reported as growing since launch. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How are DynaMed and OpenEvidence priced and sold?
EBSCO's DynaMed pages offer a free trial and a newsletter sign up, individual subscriptions are sold through the DynaMed site, and EBSCO has announced Dyna AI for DynaMedex individual subscribers.
For OpenEvidence, the named health system collaborations announced through 2026 carry no commercial terms. It is also not stated whether free individual use by a health system's clinicians creates any institutional obligation before a contract exists. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How do DynaMed and OpenEvidence handle patient data?
DynaMed Decisions takes patient data through a SMART on FHIR integration to pre populate decision aids and calculators, and that module is where retention and use questions land. Nothing published says how long queries and captured Dyna AI conversations are kept, whether they are used to train or tune any model, or what deidentification applies.
In OpenEvidence's case, the scope is narrower than it first looks. The exclusion is drawn around protected health information, not around everything a clinician types. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which settings and specialties do DynaMed and OpenEvidence cover?
The family covers distinct segments: DynaMed for disease and condition reference, Dynamic Health for nursing and allied health, and DynaMedex adding Micromedex drug content for care teams and pharmacy, with DynaMed Decisions for patient specific risk tools and shared decision making. Continuing education and maintenance of certification credit accrue from use, and a clinician can affiliate with several organizations.
With OpenEvidence, the product now covers the consultation, the encounter through Visits, and patient contact through the Dialer, with an education platform carrying continuing education and maintenance of certification credit added on 28 July 2026. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers.
Both records were reviewed on this site in September 2026. OpenEvidence is free and funded by advertising; DynaMed sells subscriptions, and its price pages could not be read at review. DynaMed's published evaluation tested its search and an earlier assistant, and Dyna AI has no published accuracy study.
Ask DynaMed what has been measured about Dyna AI's answers, and ask OpenEvidence how advertising is kept separate from the answer.