Integrating Targeted MedlinePlus Health Prescriptions Into Clinic Practice Workflow

Integrating Targeted MedlinePlus Health Prescriptions Into Clinic Practice Workflow

The specific aim of this proposed project is to implement a standard process for integrating MedlinePlus health information prescriptions into the clinic workflow.

Hypothesis 1: Individuals in the intervention group who receive tailored email health information with provider selected MedlinePlus links and added commentary for patient specific conditions will be more likely to seek information / use MedlinePlus compared with individuals in the control group.

Hypothesis 2: Individuals in the intervention group who receive tailored email health information with provider selected MedlinePlus links and added commentary for patient specific conditions will be more satisfied with the information received compared with individuals in the control group.

Providing patient education in an outpatient practice can be challenging in part due to the variety of patient medical conditions and the quantity of materials needed. Increasingly, electronic resources such as those found on the internet have the potential to provide easily accessible needed information. However, clinicians do not have the time to assemble a list of websites for their patients and even if they did, the quality of information varies greatly and would require close screening. MedlinePlus is a free National Library of Medicine sponsored website that features health information on hundreds of conditions with all information carefully screened for quality standards by expert librarians. We will conduct a pilot study to seamlessly integrate provider-customized MedlinePlus health education prescriptions for specific conditions into the normal clinic workflow to motivate patients to access and expand their use of MedlinePlus to benefit their health. As HIV prevention/education is very important, we will include the HIV clinic as well as a general internal medicine clinic.

Inclusion Criteria:

• To be included in the study population, patients must also be seen by their physician for one of the 21 target health conditions (Allergic Rhinitis, Asthma, Back Pain, Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy, Bursitis, Depression/Anxiety, Diabetes Mellitus, Esophageal Reflux, HIV, Hyperlipidemia, Hypertension, Insomnia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Obesity, Osteoporosis (senile), Shoulder Pain, Sinusitis, Symptomatic Menopause, Urinary Incontinence, Urinary Tract Infection, Vaginitis) and be willing to provide an email address.
• Patients will be included only once.
• All patients in the intervention and the control group will receive the survey.
• All physicians and staff at the Fairview Clinic and HIV Clinic will be invited to complete the physician or staff survey.

Exclusion Criteria:

• No email address