The Essential Guide to the Internet for Health Professionals

Sydney Chellen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781134404636
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Web Development
• Index: Computer Science

Health and social care services are responsible for the delivery of skilled and high-quality care to their patients and clients. Nowhere are these objectives more important than in the fields of nursing, midwifery, radiography, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, health promotion, and social work. And one important quality standard in health care is evidence-based information and best practice. The Internet is a subject on which many people are, let's face it, blissful innocents. I urge you to take the Internet seriously and to discover what is most relevant and useful for your practice – The Essential Guide to the Internet for Health Professionals is a practical means towards that end.

The second edition contains new information to help you find your way around the Internet and updates the original book with more detail on the clear framework of the original edition. It's a how-to book to get you going and save you time – a guide to those parts of cyberspace that provide particularly relevant evidence.

unit 1

health and the net – an overview

The development of information processing and retrieval skills, with an ability to operate a computer and produce effective results in letters, documents, and reports, and educational materials, are now very important … for ourselves, our colleagues, our students.

E. Ballard (1996)¹
Senior Lecturer, School of Nursing and Midwifery,
University of Wolverhampton

Many health care students around the world are making it their business to learn how to surf the net because they have realized the wealth of health information it contains, and the opportunity it offers them to share ideas with other students and health care professionals around the world.

The volume of information available via the Internet is huge. Everything that may be of interest to you is scattered around the world on different computers. Collectively these computers make up the Internet. Here is a quick outline of the most popular services on offer that should get you interested:

• World wide web – which, among other things, contains a wealth of health information

• Searchable, browsable health and medical databases

• E-mail for two-way world-wide communication

• Newsgroups: a discussion platform of topical health issues

• Mailing lists for keeping up to date in your specialist area

• Internet Relay Chat (IRC) for distance learning

• Voice on the net (VON) for live communication

• FTP for looking inside distant computers

• Archie for copying files from distant computers

• Gopher as an alternative to the web

• Telnet to connect your home computer to others on the net

• Easy publishing on the web

• Online help to assist you, e.g. with your study and jobsearch.

Unplanned surfing of the net, especially at weekends, not only tends to clog servers (computers), but can be quite an expensive activity. A more economical and productive way of using the net is to develop a search strategy. (See Unit 4.)

1.1 the world wide web

(Also referred to as WWW or the web) is the graphical, multimedia portion of the Internet and is one of the most immediate, easy to use services on the net. It links all the web pages together. Thus, a page you’re viewing from a computer in Canterbury may lead you to a page in New York, Ottawa, or Sydney with just one click of the mouse. You will find many colleges, universities, libraries, and health institutions, including individual users and others with their own pages (called the homepage). You will be able to read material on almost any topic or any branch of health care. For example, if you have an interest in mental health you can pay a visit to the Mental HealthNet for information on interactive discussion groups, mental health administration tips, popular articles, self-help resources, tools, and information for clinicians. Likewise, if you were interested in Adult or Childcare or Learning Disability you would find appropriate sites. As Howson (1997)² puts it:

To view different files on the web, you use web browsing software such as NetScape Navigator or Internet Explorer. Each file (or location) is called a web page.

[Almost] whatever you need to know, you will find a site to answer your question.

(A selected list of UK and foreign web sites applicable to nursing and allied professions is given in Unit 3.) Should you require extra help with your studies, you will find interactive web-based tutorials, which you can explore at your own pace and when it suits you. You will also be able to access some Computer Assisted Learning materials and read up-to-date electronic health journals on a variety of health disciplines. If you learn better by hearing and seeing, then you can watch videos of surgical procedures and look at a vast selection of medical images. (See Units 3 and 4.)

1.2 databases

A range of health and medical databases, increasingly with full-text services, is being delivered via the Internet. These include bibliographical databases such as Medline or CINAHL and non-bibliographic databases such as the Genome Database. One of the leading electronic information retrieval services is Ovid Technologies Inc. The Ovid-Biomed service provides a fully functional, low-cost Medline service to HE and FE institutions and NHS organizations. The service provides access to important databases, namely: Medline, Cinahl, Cancerlit, Core Biomedical Collection, Ovid Biomedical Collection II, III, IV, Mental Health Collection and Nursing Collection. (The ‘Collections’ are smaller specialized databases put together by Ovid containing the electronic full text version of up to 20 relevant journals.)

A database can be described as a sophisticated electronic filing cabinet capable of storing and sorting large amounts of data in an organized manner. The data can be accessed quickly.

The Ovid-Biomed Nursing Collection offers you the ability to search the database and link from the citation to the full text and print the complete article to take away. It provides access to the following journals from 1995 onwards and is updated on a monthly basis:

• Advances in Nursing Science

• American Journal of Infection Control

• AORN Journal

• Dermatology Nursing

• Heart and Lung

• Image: Journal of Nursing Scholarship

• Journal of Advanced Nursing

• Journal of Clinical Nursing

• Journal of Emergency Nursing

• Nurse Researcher

• Nursing Health Care

• Nursing Management (RCN Publishing)

• Nursing Standard

• RN.

EBMR encompasses two major sources of evidence-based medicine material, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Best Evidence.

You will also find that the Ovid-Biomed service has recently included Evidence Based Medicine Reviews (EBMR). This is a useful addition. You can perform a search using medline and retrieve additional information from an EBMR article.

These databases will help you to complete your course assignments. You will be able to interrogate these databases from the comfort of your home or your college computer lab.

It is, however, important to bear in mind that most institutions and organizations – based on the needs of their users and financial constraints – would have selected various combinations of Internet databases to subscribe to. So don’t expect to be able to have access to all available electronic databases at your college, university computing laboratory or from your home system. (See Unit 4, Section 4.3.)

1.3 electronic mail (e-mail)

The Internet is a popular communications system that will be around for a long time to come. It brings together the best aspects of postal mail, the telephone, the fax machine, the public/college library, and the newspaper while improving on their worst features. For example, its e-mail service provides you with an easier, cheaper and faster method of keeping in touch. You can use it to collaborate on common projects with health care students in places like the US and Russia, or simply exchange personal messages with other health care colleagues, friends or relatives at other networked sites almost anywhere in the world – without the need to use paper, pen, envelope, stamp and post box. By drafting and sending e-mail to foreign health care students you will be able to increase...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• list of worksheets
• foreword
• to the reader
• about this second edition
• acknowledgements
• introduction
• unit 1 health and the net – an overview
• unit 2 getting online
• unit 3 the world wide web
• unit 4 finding health information on the Internet
• unit 5 communicating with other health professionals by e-mail
• unit 6 joining health discussion groups, mailing lists, etc
• unit 7 the gateway to free health and medical resources
• unit 8 publishing on the world wide web
• unit 9 online help with your health studies and job search
• twelve big questions and answers
• appendices
• notes
• index