Education
Patient and Family Education Center
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The Western Pennsylvania Hospital offers a Patient and Family Education Center within the Richard M. Johnston Health Sciences Library. The Center serves as a learning resource for patients and their families, offering computer access to the latest educational materials. The Patient and Family Education Center is off the lobby of the WPH Health Sciences Library, which is accessed from the back of the cafeteria (Friendship Dining Room) on the first floor, North Tower, of WPH. For more information:
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How do I know if a Web site or print item is providing reliable, good quality information? |
Consumer Health Information
Please click on one of these categories for a list of links:
- Anatomy
- Dictionaries, Encyclopedias
- Drug Information
- Tests and Procedures
- Spanish Language Resources
- Care Issues, including End-of-Life Issues
- Diseases and Conditions
Anatomy
- American Medical Association Atlas of the Body
- Anatomy and Medical Illustrations
- Human Anatomy
- Instant Anatomy
- Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body
- E skeletons
- Smithsonian Institution's Artificial Anatomy
- Visual Human Project
- Visible Body
Dictionaries - Medical
- Deciphering Medspeak - Medical Library Association
- Medical Dictionary Merriam Webster
- Medical Dictionary MedicineNet
- Medical Dictionaries Online - comprehensive list
- FamilyDoctor.org
Encyclopedias
- Health Central
- Medical EncyclopediaMedlinePlus
- MedlinePlusNational Library of Medicine
- Merck Manual of Medical Information
- NOAH: New York Online Access to Health
- MayoClinic.com
- WebMD
Drug/Medication Information
Prescription Medicines
- Buying Prescription Medicines Online: A Consumer Safety Guide
- Drug Resource Center
- Drug Information - MedlinePlus
- FDA publications listed by category (all free)
- Pharmaceutical Manufacturer Information
- RxList
- United States Pharmacopeia
Proper Use of Medicines
- My Medicines - Use Medicines Wisely
- FDA (Food and Drug Administration) free publications
- 20 tips to Help Prevent Medical Errors in Children
- Storing Medicine Safely
- Pill Identification Wizard
Tests and Procedures
General Test Information
- Diagnostic Imaging (MedlinePlus)
- Common Diagnostic Tests & Procedures (InteliHealth)
- Coping with Test Pain, Discomfort, & Anxiety (LabTestsOnline)
- Lab Tests Online (homepage)
- Nuclear Scans (MedlinePlus)
- Reference Ranges and Meanings (LabTestsOnline)
Common Diagnostic Tests - MedlinePlus
Common Blood Tests - Lab Tests Online
Spanish Language Resources
Informacion General de la Salud
- Food and Drug Administration (FDA) topics
- Descifrando el Lenguaje Médico
- Healthfinder espanol
- Institutos Nacionales de la Salud(NLM in Spanish)
- KidsHealth for Parents (from Nemours)
- Medicare (in Spanish)
- MedlinePlus (in Spanish)
- NOAH (Acceso Computerizado de la Salud en Nueva York) (English/Spanish gateway)
Enfermedades y Condiciones
- MedlinePlus A-Z (in Spanish)
- Centros para el Conrol y la Prevencion Enfermedades (CDC) (in Spanish)
- Cancer (NOAH)
- Cirurgía y rehabilitación (Surgery and Rehabilitation, MedlinePlus)
- Corazón y circulación (Blood and Circulation, MedlinePlus)
- Desórdenes del Sistema Inmune (Immuse System, NOAH)
- Diabetes (CDC)
- Drogradicción (Drug Addiction, CDC)
- Embarazo y reproducción (Childbirth, Reproductive Health, CDC)
- Erectile Dysfunction (MedlinePlus)
- Genetic Counseling (MedlinePlus)
- la Gripe (la influenza o flu) (CDC
- Huesos, articulaciones y músculos (Muscles and Joints, MedlinePlus)
- Nutrición y Los Alimentos (NOAH)
- National Arthritis Foundation in Spanish
- Salud Dental (NOAH)
- Salud del bebé y el niño (CDC)
- Salud del hombre (CDC)
- Salud de la mujer (CDC)
- Salud mental y conducta (MedlinePlus)
- Sistema digestivo (MedlinePlus)
Care Issues
Alzheimer's/Elderly
- Alzheimer's Caregivers (MedlinePlus)
- Caring for Someone with Alzheimer's (NIH)
- Caregivers' Guide to Medications and Aging
- Medicare Basics - A Guide for Caregivers (DHHS - a PDF)
- National Institute on Aging (NIH)
Children/Family
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- Caring for Children (Parenthood.com)
- Center for Family Caregivers (Caregiving.com)
- Family Caregiver Alliance (also in Spanish)
- How to Care for a Seriously Ill Child (from Nemours)
- National Family Caregivers Association
- National Parenting Center
Other Caregiver Resources
- A Dying Person's Guide to Dying
- Completing A Life
- CPR and DNR
- End-of-Life Choices: Feeding Tubes and Ventilators
- Glossary
- Interacting with a terminally ill loved one (Mayo Clinic)
Organizations with Resources
- En Espanol (MedlinePlus)
- AARP
- American College of Physicians
- Living with a Serious Illness: Talking with Your Doctor When the Future is Uncertain (PDF)
- When You Have Pain at the End of Life (PDF)
- Making Medical Decisions for a Loved One at the End of Life (PDF)
- American College of Physicians Home Care Guide for Advanced Cancer
- American College of Physicians Home Care Guide for HIV and AIDS
- American Hospice Foundation
- Americans for Better Care of the Dying
- Death with Dignity National Center
- Hospice Foundation of America
- National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization
- National Institute of Mental Health
Diseases and Conditions
Megasites with "A to Z" lists of diseases, conditions, treatments:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- DiscoveryHealth.com
- Healthfinder.gov
- InteliHealth (Aetna and Harvard Health)
- MayoClinic.com
- MedlinePlus(National Library of Medicine)
- New York Online Access to Health (NOAH)
- WebMD
Judging the Quality of Health Information
(adapted from Johns Hopkins University Libraries)
Evaluate health information by asking these questions:
Who is the author?
Who wrote the information? Authorship is perhaps the major criterion used in evaluating information. When we see information, especially on an issue as critical as our health, we want to know what qualifications the author has to speak to this topic.
Who published the information?
Who published the information? Publisher information can be helpful in evaluating documents on the Web as well as in print. For print materials such as books and magazines, the author's manuscript has often undergone screening in order to verify that it meets the standards or aims of the organization that serves as the publisher. This may include peer review.
On the Internet, ask the following questions to assess the role and authority of the "publisher," which in this case means the server (computer) where the document lives:
Is the name of any organization given on the document you are reading? Are there headers, footers, or a distinctive watermark that show the document to be part of an official academic or scholarly Web site? Can you contact the site Webmaster from this document?
If not, can you link to a page where such information is listed? Is the page you link to on the same site (which you can tell by looking at the URL or "address" of the page)?
Is this organization recognized in the field in which you are seeking information?
Is this organization suitable to address the topic at hand?
What is the writer's point of view or bias?
Information is rarely neutral. Writers always have a point of view regarding the meaning of the information they are presenting and many writers select data to include that prove a point the writer is trying to make. Even writers who are trying to be objective may weight the information in one way or another.
When evaluating information from the Internet, it is important to ask whether the writer might have a particular point of view or bias. The popularity of the Internet makes it the perfect venue for commercial and sociopolitical publishing. These areas in particular are open to highly "interpretative" uses of data.
Does the work show "scholarship"?
"Scholarship" refers to evidence of the author's knowledge of his or her discipline and its practices. Scholarship is demonstrated by how the author situates his or her work in the context of what other knowledgeable persons have written on this topic. Reading some of these other works allows you to evaluate the author's scholarship or knowledge of trends in the area under discussion.
Can you verify that the information is accurate?
Verifying the accuracy of information, such as "facts," you hear or read is extremely important, especially when you know little about the author or the subject. If the information is reliable, you should be able to verify statistics (such as dates and numbers) and other "facts" using a non-biased source such as a medical society or national non-profit health agency.
How current (up to date) is the information?
"Currency" refers to the timeliness of information. For documents, whether real or virtual, the date of publication is the first indicator of currency. For some types of information, currency is not an issue - authorship or place in the historical record is more important (e.g. T.S. Eliot's essays on tradition in literature).
For other types of data, such as health information on the Web, currency is extremely important, as is the regularity with which the information is updated. Check for the following criteria of "currency":
- The document includes the date(s) on which the information was gathered.
- The document refers to clearly dated information (e.g. "Based on 1990 US Census data").
- The document includes a publication date or a "last updated" date.
- The document includes a date of copyright.
- If no date is given in an electronic document, you can view the directory in which it resides and read the date of latest modification.
- Does the information come with advertising?
Internet search engines are not the same as library databases, which may be most apparent if you see "ads" popping up along with the information you are searching for.
Library databases contain information, such as subject headings, author names, and abstracts, that before the computer age were located in physical files such as "card catalogs." Library databases have been created by information professionals to make it easier to search for specific information located within library collections, such as in books and journals and videotape collections.
Some Internet search engines are also databases, but they are not like the databases found in libraries. Some Internet search engines support the cost of the search engine by selling space to advertisers. Many Web sites are also supported by advertising. The amount of advertising in a document, whether a printed magazine or a Web site, can be used to evaluate the quality of the information. If ads display before the information you requested from an Internet search engine, or a Web site is cluttered with advertising, it is because the search engine or Web site publishers have given priority to advertisers.
Remember . . .
All information, whether in print or by byte, needs to be evaluated by readers for authority, appropriateness, and other personal criteria for value. If you find information that is "too good to be true," it probably is. Never use information that you cannot verify. Establishing and using criteria to filter information you find on the Internet is a good beginning for becoming a critical consumer of information in all forms.
