BACKGROUND: Digital information technology can facilitate informed decision making by individuals regarding their personal health care. The digital divide separates those who do and those who do not have access to or otherwise make use of digital information. To close the digital divide, health care communications research must address a fundamental issue, the consumer vocabulary problem: consumers of health care, at least those who are laypersons, are not always familiar with the...

BACKGROUND: Little is known about to what extent patients who underwent medical treatment access the Internet and whether they benefit from consulting the Internet. OBJECTIVE: To understand if cardiopathic patients use the Internet for health-related information and whether they find retrieved information understandable and useful. METHODS: Telephone interviews, using a semi-structured questionnaire, were conducted with 82 patients who had undergone off-pump coronary-artery bypass grafting...

BACKGROUND: It is becoming increasingly important for health professionals to have an understanding of health informatics. Education in this area must support not only undergraduate students but also the many workers who graduated before informatics education was available in the undergraduate program. To be successful, such a program must allow currently-employed students with significant work and family commitments to enroll. OBJECTIVES: The aim was to successfully create and teach a...