Online Medical Resources, Search Engines

Dr. Tanveer Abbas

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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter the reader should be able to:

• State the challenges of staying current for the average clinician

• Describe the characteristics of an ideal educational resource

• Describe the evolution from the classic textbook based library

to the current online digital library

• Compare and contrast the different formats of digital libraries

• Describe the future of digital resources integrated with

electronic health records

• Describe emerging Web 2.0 technologies in medicine

• Identify the most commonly used free and commercial online

libraries

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What are the challenges clinicians face today?

1) Educational Challenge

2) Specialty to Primary Care Manager

(PCM) Challenge

3) Translational Challenge

4) Evolutionary Challenge

5) Retention Challenge

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What are the challenges clinicians face today? Contd…

1) Educational Challenge

• Standard medical textbooks are expensive and out of date shortly after publication.

• Descriptions of diseases are not always updated.

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What are the challenges clinicians face today? Contd…

2) Specialty to Primary Care Manager (PCM) Challenge

• There is no standard way to distribute information that is either reliable or particularly effective

• Once there is a new standard of care for a disease such as diabetes, how do you get the word out, particularly to small or remote medical practices?

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What are the challenges clinicians face today? Contd…

3) Translational Challenge• Translational research is scientific research that

helps to make findings from basic science useful for practical applications.

• Studies have shown that it may take up to ten or more years for research to be “translated” to the exam room

• Recent studies often contradict older

studies due to better study design

and larger subject populations

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What are the challenges clinicians face today? Contd…

4) Evolutionary Challenge

• We can no longer teach “classic medicine,” because diseases and their presentations change over time

• Diseases were detected at more advanced stages in the older literature, because lab tests were lacking.

• Currently we tend to diagnose diseases earlier,

before the patient has advanced

signs and symptoms due to better

and earlier tests.

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What are the challenges clinicians face today? Contd…

5) Retention Challenge

• According to many studies there is an inverse relationship between current knowledge and the year of graduation from medical school.

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How have we evolved from the traditional library to online resources?

• Before the start of the Internet physicians used print resources for verifying actual information related to patient care

• To provide the best care for their patients, physicians still need to check drug information, differential diagnosis tools, current textbooks, or the journal literature, but instead of heading to the library they turn to the Internet for answers.

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• The resources available online are far more extensive than the personal libraries or hospital libraries that physicians used in a print world.

• Recently publishers are experimenting with hybrid journals that offer their most important content online, while still publishing print issues.

• Today medical library collections are a mosaic of print and online content

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Ideal medical resources are those that are:• Evidence based with references and level of evidence

(explained in the chapter on evidence based medicine)• Updated frequently• Simple to access with a single sign-on• Available at the point of care• Capable of being embedded into an electronic health record• Likely to produce an answer with only

a few clicks• Useful for primary care physicians and

specialists• Written and organized with the end user in mind

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New Tools are Available to Stay Current in Medicine

• To keep medical practice current physicians need new tools.

• These tools can be used to help physicians learn about the very developments that will improve their practice.

• Wikis allows physicians to collaborate to create peer-reviewed content that is written and edited by participating users.

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• The most famous general example is Wikipedia, but several medical references such as AskDrWiki.com and Ganfyd.org are being created and shared by participating medical professionals.

• AskDrWiki controls the quality of its entries with strict editorial policies and Ganfyd only allows credentialed individuals to provide content.

• Keeping up with changes to important websites can be challenging.

• Audiocasts (podcasts) and videocastsoffer educational programs, health news andmedical updates.

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Conclusion

• Online resources are becoming the medical library of choice for healthcare workers due to depth of content and speed of retrieval.

• Subject matter can be updated more rapidly compared to standard textbooks.

• There are many free resources that should be considered by all clinicians such as Epocrates Online, MedlinePlus and Medscape.

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Search Engines

• The most rapid and comprehensive way to access information today from anywhere in the world is a search of the World Wide Web via the Internet.

• If we assume that the Internet is the new global library with more than 3 billion web sites, then it should come as no surprise that search engines are the gateway.

• Popular search engines such as Google provide successful searches for medical and non-medical issues.

• Familiarity with PubMed and its new features is important for healthcare workers who need to conduct formal searches of the medical literature.

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Google

• Google is by far the most widely used search engine in the world.

• Its name is derived from the word googol which is the mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeroes.

• Google was developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brinin 1996 when they were graduate students at Stanford.

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• Google can be an acceptable medical search engine for common as well as rare conditions that are not likely to be found in journals or textbooks.

• Google Scholar is an offspring of Google that searches the full text of peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles at publishers’ websites

• Google is the premier search engine for non-medical and perhaps medical searches.

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