Look It Up! : What Patients, Doctors, Nurses, and Pharmacists Need to Know About the Internet and Primary Health Care

A behind-the-scenes guide that reveals how online information affects both patients and clinicians. A behind-the-scenes guide that reveals how online information affects both patients and clinicians. "Readily available, reliable medical information allows doctors, nurses, and pharmacists to find answers, reduce uncertainties, work with their patients, and check for alternative treatment options within minutes. Even though electronic information sources have developed at an amazing pace over the last decades, clinicians are not using these resources as much as they could - and should. Doctors Pierre Pluye and Roland Grad, internationally recognized experts in the fields of knowledge translation and health information studies, along with bestselling author and journalist Julie Barlow, take readers behind-the-scenes to show how online information is affecting self-care and primary health care in medicine, nursing, and pharmacy. Based on fifteen years of in-depth interviews and research, Look It Up! provides essential tips for patients and clinicians to administer and receive the best possible primary health care, while avoiding the perils of unguided self-diagnosis. This book shows how, by dint of an inquiring mind and a smartphone, rapid and accurate acquisition of knowledge keeps primary care clinicians up-to-date. It also shows how people can determine whether a test is more beneficial than harmful, and how information helps resolve disagreements and improve collaboration with patients and families, and among doctors, pharmacists, and nurses. In the age of easily accessible online information, clinicians have to think differently about how they work. Organized around numerous real clinical stories, Look It Up! is an illuminating and lively guide to improving patient care."-- Provided by publisher. "Readily available, reliable medical information allows doctors, nurses, and pharmacists to find answers, reduce uncertainties, work with their patients, and check for alternative treatment options within minutes. Even though electronic information sources have developed at an amazing pace over the last decades, clinicians are not using these resources as much as they could - and should. Doctors Pierre Pluye and Roland Grad, internationally recognized experts in the fields of knowledge translation and health information studies, along with bestselling author and journalist Julie Barlow, take readers behind-the-scenes to show how online information is affecting self-care and primary health care in medicine, nursing, and pharmacy. Based on fifteen years of in-depth interviews and research, Look It Up! provides essential tips for patients and clinicians to administer and receive the best possible primary health care, while avoiding the perils of unguided self-diagnosis. This book shows how, by dint of an inquiring mind and a smartphone, rapid and accurate acquisition of knowledge keeps primary care clinicians up-to-date. It also shows how people can determine whether a test is more beneficial than harmful, and how information helps resolve disagreements and improve collaboration with patients and families, and among doctors, pharmacists, and nurses. In the age of easily accessible online information, clinicians have to think differently about how they work. Organized around numerous real clinical stories, Look It Up! is an illuminating and lively guide to improving patient care."-- Résumé de l'éditeur Doctors Pierre Pluye and Roland Grad, internationally recognized experts in the fields of knowledge translation and health information studies, along with bestselling author and journalist Julie Barlow, take readers behind the scenes to show how online information is affecting self-care and primary health care in medicine, nursing, and pharmacy. Based on fifteen years of in-depth interviews and research, Look It Up! provides essential tips for patients and clinicians to administer and receive the best possible primary health care, while avoiding the perils of unguided self-diagnosis. This book shows how, by dint of an inquiring mind and a smartphone, rapid and accurate acquisition of knowledge keeps primary care clinicians up to date. It also shows how people can determine whether a test is more beneficial than harmful, and how information helps resolve disagreements and improve collaboration with patients and families, and among doctors, pharmacists, and nurses. In the age of easily accessible online information, clinicians have to think differently about how they work. Organized around numerous real clinical stories, Look It Up! is an illuminating and lively guide to improving patient care. Cover Look It Up! Title Copyright Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1 A New Way of Diagnosing 2 Do I Really Need This Test? 3 When Clinicians Disagree 4 The Expanded Role of Pharmacists 5 Better Treatment for Chronic Problems and Common Conditions 6 Getting Patients Engaged 7 The Pros and Cons of “Doctor Google” 8 Nurses and Doctors Can’t Remember Everything 9 The Hidden Problem of Health Literacy 10 The Family Doctor of the Future Notes Bibliography Index