ONLINE TUTORIAL #2

 

“Using the Internet for

Patient Education”

 

 

 

Learning Objective:  To make clinicians familiar with the online repositories of Patient Education Materials

 

In this tutorial, we will introduce you to two excellent resources: 

 

 

·        www.medlineplus.org

o       Put out by the same people who bring you MedLine (the National Library of Medicine) this is a search engine that access only high-quality patient education materials put out by recognized medical bodies like the American Academy of Pediatrics.

o       For example, you can quickly print out a detailed description of how to treat eczema in English or Spanish.  Equally helpful for obscure and common conditions.

 

 

·        http://www.cpnonline.org/CRS/CRS/pa_index.htm

o       Children's Physician Network – mainly written by Barton Schmidt, an iconoclastic pediatrician who has assembled a tremendous copyright-free collection of patient education materials for mainly pediatrics.

 

 

 

Online Tutorial:

 

 

1.    Overview

a.    MedlinePlus

b.    Barton Schmidt Site

c.     Others

 

2.    MedlinePlus

Consider the following case:   

A 18 year old HIV+ve patient, who has done well on antiviral triple therapy, would like to learn more about her condition.  She would specifically like to learn more about Reyataz, a 3 pill per day regimen that would simplify her life. 

a)    Find the AIDS page within Medline Plus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/).  E-mail the page to yourself or print it out.

b)    In the drug information section, look up Reyataz.  What do you think of the presentation of the material.  Can you use it for your patients?

Consider this second case:

A 3-year old has their first UTI.  The parents would like more information on the diagnosis.

a)    Look up “UTI” in MedlinePlus.  Two of the major contributors of Patient Education Material are the Nemours Foundation and the American Academy of Family Physicians.  In the results you get back for the UTI search, click on first the Nemours and then on the AAFP “hits” to get a sense of what they’re like.

 

Look up the last medication you prescribed.  Read through the handout on it – learn anything?  E-mail it to yourself. 

 

3.    Barton Schmidt

Now open up the Barton Schmidt site at:  http://www.cpnonline.org/CRS/CRS/pa_pickyeat_hhg.htm .  This link takes you right to one of their patient education handouts on “Picky Eating” which is currently seen in epidemic proportions.  Click on the “Index” link to get a flavour of this site.  Note that many of the handouts have been translated into Spanish.

 

 

 

What you’ve accomplished:

 

Each of these sites is available to you from any Internet-enabled computer.  As importantly, each is available TO YOUR PATIENTS.  In this way, you can not only hand your patients a fish (and feed them for a day) but also teach them how to fish (for information, thus allowing them to feed themselves).

 

 

If you have questions on the subject matter, contact Martin Pusic at:   mvp19@columbia.edu .

 

Maria Kwok MD

Martin Pusic MD