Where to find answers to medical questions

Information at the point of care: answering clinical questions. J Am Board Fam Pract. In addition to a way to answer questions at the point of care, you also need a way to stay current with new studies. And of course, you need to be able to quickly answer questions between patients.

Your information sources should give you access to all types of information. The most useful information is relevant, valid, and takes little work to access and apply.

Books are out of date the moment they hit the bookshelves, because there is at least a six-month delay between editing and publication. Although some computer-based information sources are also static, many are updated almost continuously—an increasingly important advantage.

Computers also make it easy to take advantage of the increasing number of validated decision-support tools. Information from reference 5. Which information sources can you trust? What makes a medical reference, electronic or otherwise, evidence-based? Perhaps the single best indicator is whether the reference clearly states how strong the evidence is to support recommendations about patient care.

Another good sign of evidence-based material is when the reference carefully describes how the literature was searched, so you can be confident they looked at all of the evidence rather than just a selection of it. Finally, you should know if a company or special interest group with a vested interest in the topic sponsored the study.

Articles may be biased because the sponsor provided a biased literature search, because the authors are unknowingly biased in favor of the sponsor because of the grant or fee for writing the article, or because in some cases the article is largely written for them by a medical communications company i.

Table 2 lists some objective, evidence-based sources of information. British online periodical that reviews evidence for important clinical questions. Subscription-based online reference; freely available for physicians who receive the print summary from United Healthcare; PDA and smartphone version available. Excerpted monthly in AFP. Extensive database of systematic reviews and clinical trials. Subscription-based online reference with extensive calculators, decision support tools, POEMs, and Cochrane systematic reviews; PDA and smartphone version available.

Nonprofit consortium of physicians and insurance companies that writes and disseminates evidence-based practice guidelines. Preventive Services Task Force. Although it is an incredible resource, it is not the first place you should look to find answers to your questions.

There is so much information it is like trying to drink from a firehose. One way to focus your search is to use the Clinical Queries feature on the PubMed home page. These searches are configured to find the most relevant, valid research on a topic.

Once you find a particularly useful article, look at the related articles for additional relevant studies. Finally, no article on searching the medical literature would be complete without mentioning Google. This search engine is becoming increasingly helpful because it now indexes the National Library of Medicine and provides specific links about diagnosis, treatment, and other clinically relevant subtopics. Where should you begin? Some practical tips are shown in Table 2.

Work with your colleagues to implement strategies that make you a better manager of information, and that give you a framework for answering questions and keeping your practice consistent with the best available evidence. Already a member or subscriber? Log in. Interested in AAFP membership? Learn more. MARK H. He also is deputy editor for evidence-based medicine for American Family Physician. Address correspondence to Mark H. Reprints are not available from the author.

Author disclosure: Dr. Ebell is a consulting editor for John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Ebell M. J Am Med Inform Assoc. J Fam Pract. Becoming a medical information master: feeling good about not knowing everything. Excluding pulmonary embolism at the bedside without diagnostic imaging: management of patients with suspected pulmonary embolism presenting to the emergency department by using a simple clinical model and d -dimer.

Ann Intern Med. This content is owned by the AAFP. A person viewing it online may make one printout of the material and may use that printout only for his or her personal, non-commercial reference. This material may not otherwise be downloaded, copied, printed, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any medium, whether now known or later invented, except as authorized in writing by the AAFP. Contact afpserv aafp. Want to use this article elsewhere? Get Permissions. The site's knowledge base is a wiki that allows you to search for specific ailments or ask general questions that might already have been answered by the community of doctors.

At first glance, the idea that a health site is a Wiki may turn some off, but to ensure all the information on the site is accurate, Medpedia only allows physicians and those with a Ph. That cuts down on the number of erroneous bits of information that crop up on the site and, in my opinion, makes the site more reliable than a resource like Wikipedia, which anyone can modify.

When I entered "back pain" into the site's search field, I was brought to a results page that not only featured a Wiki containing general information about the ailment and links to other, related Medpedia Wikis, but also a series of answers provided by doctors to questions asked by the site's users. And although some weren't directly targeted at my query, I could have easily asked my own set of questions, which would have been answered directly by a medical professional. I should note, though, that Medpedia is still in beta and was launched Tuesday.

Because of that, the site doesn't offer every conceivable health topic and a few obscure conditions are still missing. But more Wiki pages are being added each day and the community of doctors and patients is growing. It might not be WebMD yet, but it's off to a good start.

Read more on Medpedia. WebMD is the leader in the health research space and it boasts more features and options than any other site in this roundup. WebMD is simply the best health research tool on the market. My biggest complaint with WebMD has nothing to do with its information and everything to do with its design: it's ugly. I was happy to see that the site features a prominent search box at the top of the page, but its home page is cluttered with blogs, articles, and other information that I ignore because there's simply too much information packed into a small page.

The real value of WebMD is seen in its search. From something simple like "back pain" to something complex like "spondylolysis," the site has it all. I was impressed by the wealth of information WebMD provides and its simple articles actually provided me with more information that the videos on HealthiNation or the articles on Livestrong. It was outstanding. Beyond its information service, WebMD's drug finder is an outstanding tool that helps you learn all about a particular prescription medicine you're using.

It comes in handy when you need to find out if you're experiencing sickness or a side effect from a medication and it's an ideal tool when you want to determine if a generic brand of a particular drug is suitable in place of the name brand. It's easily one of my favorite tools and one that shouldn't be overlooked when you're using WebMD.

WebMD is a great service that will provide you with all the health information you're looking for in as little time as possible. And although its design is downright awful and it should be addressed, its articles make up for that lackluster design and make it the best health research service in this roundup. Wellsphere Wellsphere is a nice health research site that aims at making you healthier through education. It works--the site's articles deliver basic information like symptoms and treatment, and its prevention information is the best on the market.

Wellsphere looks like a simple site when you surf to the home page, but once you dig deeper and start searching for medical conditions, you'll be shocked to find that it's actually a complex site featuring basic information on an ailment, question and answers between doctors and patients, news, pictures, videos, and a communities tab that allows you to compare notes with other users.

Although Wellsphere doesn't offer as many articles as WebMD, the site and its writers, which are health experts from Stanford and other prominent institutions around the U. From the simple overview to the ability to ask a specific question to the "health maven," the site's possibilities are endless. On a simple search like back pain, I was astonished at the level of detail Wellsphere provided. Not only did it provide articles detailing back pain and how to address it, but I was able to ask questions which were answered promptly by a professional and its videos were outstanding, providing more information than comparable clips on HealthiNation.

Wellsphere is an outstanding service. Although it doesn't have the same coverage as WebMD, it's just as informative and its "health maven" tool is outstanding. If you don't want to deal with the clutter and ugliness of WebMD, check out Wellsphere. I think you'll like it.

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