The Internet has brought the spirit of global communication and collaboration to nurses and other healthcare professionals in ways never before thought possible. These resources are offered to expand your opportunities for discussion, reference, education and research.
I have way too many bookmarks collected in my browser. It's on my New Year's resolution list to make logical labels, put all the links in their proper categories, and delete the dead links but it probably won't happen. Out of all the URLs I've collected, there are only a couple of dozen I visit regularly, both for personal research and to answer client questions.
At the top of the often-used list are the reliable government standbys used by many such as MedlinePlus (http://www.medlineplus.com), the Centers for Disease Control (http://www.cdc.gov) and the Department of Health and Human Services (http://www.hhs.gov) when looking for credible information. I rely on them for current and accurate information I can find easily.
The healthcare informatics landscape is evolving so rapidly that it becomes a challenge to have even a bird's eye appreciation of trends and developments. There are four links on my list that provide concise summaries of information and frequently point a direction for future Nomad wanderings. All of them have email newsletters to help keep me aware of changing informatics issues.
The California Healthcare Foundation (http://www.chcf.org) and its iHealthBeat section (http://www.ihealthbeat.org) provide news items and links to both audio and video resources related to healthcare. The in-depth reports commissioned by the Foundation are produced by a variety of expert sources on healthcare technology, practice, and administration.
MEDSCAPE (http://www.medscape.com) provides a wealth of articles, education resources and specialty-specific information that need to be on every clinician's list of "useful URLs." It's one of the few places I've found good anatomical line drawings ideal for teaching (http://www.medscape.com/pages/features/ald/fb/indexfb). The specialty-specific pages provide a quick view of current journal articles, continuing education, and news items. Their e-mail newsletters are also specialty-specific so information can be tailored to the viewer.
Founded in 1999, the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org) is a peer-reviewed e-journal that deals exclusively with Internet-mediated healthcare research. A unique feature of this journal is the speed and frequency which new articles appear. Instead of a fixed publication schedule, content is published on their site as soon as it has passed the peer-review process. Subscribers are notified by e-mail as new articles are added.
The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing (http://www.nursingworld.org/ojin/) is a peer-reviewed nursing journal dealing with nursing issues on a broad range of topics. Located on the website of the American Nurses Association (http://www.nursingworld.org) which also provides extensive nursing-related news items and issues affecting practice, this is another site for every clinician's favorites list.
These resources help me to be aware of changes and emerging technologies in healthcare. They are free and reliable. Many of you are familiar with them; for those who aren't, why not give them a try? They probably won't help you make your bookmark list shorter, but they might make it to the top of the list.
Contributed by
William Perry, MA, RN