Recommended Links

Yes, Doctor! You Can Get Reliable, Free Health Information Online

By Martha Earl, MSLS, AHIP

Tennessee Medicine, August 2006

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine recently funded the Tennessee Outreach State Planning Team, which included a group of librarians, health professionals, and community representatives. The team, whose goal was to improve health information outreach, designed and implemented a statewide survey of the health information needs of health professionals, consumers and librarians. The survey findings showed (among other things) that physicians and other health professionals needed access to free health information, and needed help in deciphering which free sources were valid. The following sites provide top quality information for physicians and do not charge fees:

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) - www.ahcpr.gov

AHRQ examines how people get access to health care, how much care costs, and what happens as a result. AHRQ seeks to improve patient safety. AHRQ translates the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force ( www.ahcpr.gov/clinic/uspst-fix.htm ) into resources for providers, patients, and healthcare systems. The National Guideline Clearinghouse ( guidelines.gov ) provides access to full-text nationally accepted clinical practice guidelines.

Cancer.gov - cancer.gov

The National Cancer Institute site includes PDQ® (Physician Data Query) ( www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cancerdatabase ), peer-reviewed summaries on cancer treatment, screening, prevention, genetics, and supportive care that are updated every six months. Cancer.gov also contains a registry of approximately 1,800 open and 12,000 closed cancer clinical trials from around the world, and directories of physicians, genetics professionals, and cancer care organizations. Treatment guidelines are avail- able in both health professional and health consumer versions.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - www.cdc.gov

The CDC works to prevent and control infectious and chronic diseases, injuries, work-place hazards, disabilities, and environmental health threats. The CDC site includes Emergency Preparedness and Response, Travelers Health, Influenza Avian Flu, Vaccines and Immunizations, and more. Also helpful are full-text articles and graphs from MMWR, CDC Wonder, and the National Center for Health Statistics.

Clinical Trials - clinicaltrials.gov

Users of this National Library of Medicine site may search by disease, treatment modality, trial phase, and geographical location. Information for each trial details whether or not the trial is recruiting, pending, or closed and provides entry criteria and contact information. All NIH funded trials are required to submit information. For non-NIH funded trials, participation in the database is optional. Check Centerwatch ( www.centerwatch.org ) for additional trials.

eMedicine - www.emedicine.com

From WebMD ( www.webmd.com ), eMedicine offers full text access to current articles on more than 7,000 diseases and disorders. The regularly updated Clinical Knowledge Base provides review articles in 59 medical specialties. eMedicine’s professional content undergoes four levels of physician peer review. eMedicine also contains 30,000 multimedia files and a substantial repository of CME opportunities.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - www.fda.gov

The FDA ensures that safe and effective products reach the market in a timely way and monitors already approved products for continued safety. Here one can find New Drug Approval, Food Safety (the Bad Bug Book at vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/intro.html ), Adverse Reactions and Patient Safety (including Recalls), Biologics, Medical Devices, and Dietary Supplements. The International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements database (IBIDS at ods.od.nih.gov/Health_Information/IBIDS.aspx ) provides abstracts and citations to scientific reports not available on PubMed.

Google - www.google.com

The quintessential search engine gets better every day. Users should keep in mind that to

find the best medical information, they cannot rely on Google alone. “In searches for clinical trials and systematic reviews, Google Scholar should of course never be used in isolation. However, it is a useful addition to PubMed, Cochrane, and other trusted sources of information, such as the TRIP or UpToDate databases, or a good medical librarian.” --How Google is Changing Medicine, British Medical Journal, December 24, 2005, 331(7531):1487-8.  

Innovations include Google Scholar

( scholar.google.com ) and Google Co-op Health ( www.google.com/coop/topic ), both in beta trial. In Google Scholar, you can search for scholarly research from peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.

Google Co-op Health represents a collaboration between the National Library of Medicine and Google. Users can contribute their expertise. For example, a doctor can label Web pages related to diabetes, and users who subscribe to that doctor’s information will receive options at the top of the results for more specific information such as “treatment,” “symptoms,” or “for health professionals” when they enter a relevant query. Users interested in contributing can get started at www.google.com/coop.

HardinMD - www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/md/

The Hardin Meta Directory, as a directory of directories, lists the lists. Specialty and subject pages include large “one-stop-shopping” sites such as MedWeb and Yahoo, and also smaller discipline-specific directories developed by people well-known within their fields. Pages indicate the length of lists in each subject. New features include “Just Plain Links” to primary information and Medical Pictures.

Health on the Net Foundation (HON) - www.hon.ch/med_prof.html

Health on the Net Foundation is the leading organization guiding the deployment of reliable online health information. HON is a non- profit, non-governmental organization, accredited to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. HON includes two search tools, MedHunt and HONselect, and the HON Code of Conduct (HONcode).

MedlinePlus - medlineplus.gov

Health professionals and consumers alike can depend on this National Library of Medicine site. MedlinePlus has extensive information from the National Institutes of Health and other trusted sources on over 590 diseases and conditions. There are also lists of hospitals and physicians, a medical encyclopedia and dictionaries, Spanish information, consumer drug, interactive tutorials, and surgery videos. MedlinePlus is updated daily.

Medscape - www.medscape.com

Medscape, another WebMD product, offers a multi-specialty site worth completing the registration. Key features include review articles, journal commentary, book reviews, 850 CME activities, conference coverage, daily news by specialty, MedPulse (a weekly e-newsletter), and business, managed care, and medical practice information. Each specialty has a customized page. Content is managed under the guidance of a program director and professional advisory board.

Merck Manuals - www.merck.com/pubs

All the Merck manuals are made available: The Merck Manual of Medical Information-- Home Edition, The Merck Manual of Diagnosis & Therapy, The Merck Manual of Geriatrics, The Merck Veterinary Manual, and The Merck Index.

MerckMedicus - www.merckmedicus.com

MerckMedicus provides many of the same resources that you must pay to access on MDConsult ( www.mdconsult.com ) to physicians free from Merck. License number is required for registration. Some key resources are Harrison’s Online, textbooks covering 20 specialties, 150 full-text journals and newsletters, Dorland’s Medical Dictionary, Slide Image Bank, DXplain, Mosby’s Drug Consult, CME, and patient education materials.

PubMed - pubmed.gov

PubMed, a National Library of Medicine database, contains over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed links to full text articles and other related resources. One can set up a current awareness e-mail with My NCBI, use PubMed Central to get free copies of articles, or sign up for Loansome Doc to order articles from a medical library.

Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL) - access.gale.com/tel2

A collection of databases provided by the Tennessee State Library and Archives includes two health databases. Health Reference Center Academic provides access to a variety of medical journal articles full-text. Call any library for the password.

Tennessee Health - www2.state.tn.us/health/data.htm

Tennessee county health statistics, licensing information, etc., reside here.

Quackwatch - www.quackwatch.org

Quackwatch, Inc., a nonprofit corporation founded by Dr. Stephen Barrett to combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, and fallacies, focuses on quackery-related information that is difficult to find elsewhere.

Yahoo - dir.yahoo.com/Health/Medicine

One of the pioneer subject directories continues to provide links in your medical field of interest.

 

Ms. Earl is reference coordinator for the University of Tennessee Preston Medical Library in Knoxville and serves on the Tennessee Outreach State Planning Team.