Online Sources for Health and Health Informatics

The Internet represents an increasingly useful resource both for general health care and specific health informatics information. There are a number of online resources which health care providers or informatics researchers and developers can consult.  A few of those resources are discussed

1. Internet Grateful Med or PubMed (MEDLINE)
   http://igm.nlm.nih.gov/ (Internet Grateful Med)
   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/ (PubMed)
   Both Internet Grateful Med and PubMed provide no-cost access to the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE database of published biomedical literature along with other, specialized databases, such as AIDSLINE, AIDSDRUGS, BIOETHICSLINE, MEDLINEplus (consumer health information) and others.  MEDLINE itself provides searchable bibliographic information and abstracts on thousands of published biomedical articles dating back to 1966.  Different users have different preferences between the Internet Grateful Med and PubMed interfaces.  Grateful Med is likely easier for novice users (and easily allows for the use of search filters such as "Year of Publication" and "Publication Types" such as "clinical trials," etc.), but PubMed works more akin to Internet search engines such as AltaVista, Yahoo and others.

2. The Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA)
   http://www.jamia.org/
   One of the most well-respected informatics journals.  Contents are now available online (bibliographic citations and abstracts at no cost; full text available to subscribers).  Users on any of Marshall University's main or regional campuses should have direct access to the full text of JAMIA.

3. NIH Health Services / Technology Assessment Texts
   http://text.nlm.nih.gov/
   A collection of resources including the AHCPR Guide to Clinical Preventive Services, Practice Guidelines, Evidence Reports and others.

4. CancerNet
   http://cancernet.nci.nih.gov/
   CancerNet provides the latest and most up-to-date information from the National Cancer Institute, including the latest recommended treatment protocols (updated twice-monthly, as needed) and information on current clinical trials.

5. The Cochrane Collaboration
   http://www.cochrane.org/
   The Cochrane Collaboration is an international organization that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about healthcare by preparing, maintaining and promoting the accessibility of systematic reviews (meta-analyses) of the effects of healthcare interventions.  The Cochrane Collaboration does not conduct clinical trials itself; rather, it evaluates and synthesizes the results of published clinical trials to develop a "best evidence" recommendation on the diagnosis and treatment of a number of ailments.

6. Up-to-Date.com
   http://www.uptodate.com/
   An official, educational program of six major medical associations (including the Society of Internal Medicine, http://www.sgim.org), this subscription service is designed for subspecialists and internists.  It seeks to synthesize the latest published reports from over 200 journals each month.  Note:  Up-to-Date Online is available free for September 2000.

7. QuackWatch.com
   http://www.quackwatch.com/
   A collection of critical reviews of health related WWW sites which might be of use when counseling patients who have found questionable information on the Internet.