Background: Busy clinicians need easy access to evidence-based information to inform their clinical practice. Publishers and organizations have designed specific tools to meet doctors’ needs at the point of care. Objective: The aim of this study was to describe online point-of-care summaries and evaluate their breadth, content development, and editorial policy against their claims of being “evidence-based.” Methods: We searched Medline, Google, librarian association...

Background: Contemporary learning technologies, such as massively multiplayer virtual worlds (MMVW), create new means for teaching and training. However, knowledge about the effectiveness of such training is incomplete, and there are no data regarding how students experience it. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a field within medicine in high demand for new and effective training modalities. Objective: In addition to finding a feasible way to implement CPR training, our aim was to...

Background: The development of health information technologies should be informed by iterative experiments in which qualitative and quantitative methodologies provide a deeper understanding of the abilities, needs, and goals of the target audience for a personal health application. Objective: Our objective was to create an interface for parents of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity/disorder (ADHD) to enter disease-specific information to facilitate data entry with minimal task...

Background: The Internet is widely used for health information, yet little is known about the online activity of family caregivers of elders, a rapidly growing group. In order to better understand the online information-seeking activity of “e-caregivers” and other visitors at a caregiving website, we undertook a qualitative analysis of survey data from a website marketed as a comprehensive resource for adults caring for aging parents. Objective: The objectives were to better understand...

Background: A new bilingual (English and French) Internet-based self-management program, Teens Taking Charge: Managing Arthritis Online, for adolescents with arthritis and their parents was developed following a needs assessment. Objective: This study explored the usability (user performance and satisfaction) of the self-management program for youth with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and their parents to refine the health portal prototype. Methods: A qualitative study design with...

Background: The Weight Loss Maintenance Trial (WLM) compared two long-term weight-maintenance interventions, a personal contact arm and an Internet arm, with a no-treatment control after an initial six-month Phase I weight loss program. The Internet arm focused on use of an interactive website for support of long-term weight maintenance. There is limited information about patterns of website use and specific components of an interactive website that might help promote maintenance of weight...

Background: Men considering the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test for prostate cancer, an increasingly common male cancer, are encouraged to make informed decisions, as the test is limited in its accuracy and the natural history of the condition is poorly understood. The Web-based PSA decision aid, Prosdex, was developed as part of the UK Prostate Cancer Risk Management Programme in order to help men make such informed decisions. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect...

Background: Both intratreatment and extratreatment social support are associated with increased rates of smoking cessation. Internet-based social support groups have the capability of connecting widely dispersed groups of people trying to quit smoking, making social support available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at minimal cost. However, to date there has been little research to guide development of this particular feature of Web-assisted tobacco interventions (WATIs). Objective: Our...

Background: Patient registries are commonly used to track survival and medical outcomes in large cohorts. However, large-scale collection of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) data is more challenging because such data must be collected directly from patients. Internet-based HRQOL questionnaires are a potential solution, allowing home data collection with immediate storage in a central database. Objective: Our objectives were to investigate the sociodemographic predictors of Internet use...

Background: Online health communication has the potential to reach large audiences, with the additional advantages that it can be operational at all times and that the costs per visitor are low. Furthermore, research shows that Internet-delivered interventions can be effective in changing health behaviors. However, exposure to Internet-delivered health-communication programs is generally low. Research investigating predictors of exposure is needed to be able to effectively disseminate online...

Background: Internet-delivered behavior change programs have the potential to reach a large population. However, low participation levels and high levels of attrition are often observed. The worksite could be a setting suitable for reaching and retaining large numbers of people, but little is known about reach and use of Internet-delivered health promotion programs in the worksite setting. Objective: This study aimed (1) to gain more insight in the use of the website component of a worksite...

Background: Elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol is a leading risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Despite the availability of proven interventions to lower LDL cholesterol, their use remains subobtimal. Many websites provide interactive, tailored advice on cardiovascular risk in an attempt to help bridge this evidence-practice gap, yet there is little evidence that provision of such a tool is effective in changing practice. Objective: The objective was to define the effects...

Background: Few data exist to inform concerns raised by online direct-to-consumer marketing of genetic susceptibility tests, such as those offered by commercial entities like 23andme, Navigenics, and DNA Direct. The Multiplex Initiative, a population-based study of healthy adults, provides the first opportunity to evaluate how use of a Web-based decision tool that conveyed information about a genetic susceptibility test influenced individuals’ test decisions. Objective: To inform the...

Background: In recent years, there has been a growth in work on the use of information extraction technologies for tracking disease outbreaks from online news texts, yet publicly available evaluation standards (and associated resources) for this new area of research have been noticeably lacking. Objective: This study seeks to create a “gold standard” data set against which to test how accurately disease outbreak information extraction systems can identify the semantics of disease outbreak...

There is an astounding silence in the peer-reviewed literature regarding what rights a person ought to expect to retain when being represented by an avatar rather than a biological body. Before one can have meaningful ethical discussions about informed consent in virtual worlds, avatar bodily integrity, and so on, the status of avatars vis-à-vis the self must first be decided. We argue that as another manifestation of the individual, an individual’s avatar should have rights analogous to...

The advent of electronic personal health records (PHRs) provides a major opportunity to encourage positive health management practices, such as chronic disease management. Yet, to date there has been little attention toward the use of PHRs where advanced health information services are perhaps most needed, namely, in underserved communities. Drawing upon research conducted with safety net providers and patients, the authors propose a multi-level analytical framework for guiding actions aimed...

In the near future, citizens will be able to control and manage their own health information through electronic personal health record systems and tools. The clinical benefits of this innovation, such as cost savings, error reduction, and improved communication, have been discussed in the literature and public forums, as have issues related to privacy and confidentiality. Receiving little attention are the benefits these will have for public health. The benefits and potential for innovation...

In response to Banzi's et al review of online evidence-based practice point-of-care resources published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, the publisher of DynaMed clarifies his evidence-based methodology.

We are pleased that the publisher of DynaMed clarified his evidence-based methodology in response to our review. We stress again how good reporting is a prerequisite for transparency. This lesson comes from the reporting of research findings but its extension to the development of information sources should be considered.