MEDLINE: the options for health professionals

Digital Health Professions Education on Diabetes Management: Systematic Review by the Digital Health Education Collaboration

Background

There is a shortage of health care professionals competent in diabetes management worldwide. Digital education is increasingly used in educating health professionals on diabetes. Digital diabetes self-management education for patients has been shown to improve patients’ knowledge and outcomes. However, the effectiveness of digital education on diabetes management for health care professionals is still unknown.

Objective

The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness and economic impact of digital education in improving health care professionals’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, satisfaction, and competencies. We also assessed its impact on patient outcomes and health care professionals’ behavior.

Methods

We included randomized controlled trials evaluating the impact of digitalized diabetes management education for health care professionals pre- and postregistration. Publications from 1990 to 2017 were searched in MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, CINAHL, ERIC, and Web of Science. Screening, data extraction and risk of bias assessment were conducted independently by 2 authors.

Results

A total of 12 studies met the inclusion criteria. Studies were heterogeneous in terms of digital education modality, comparators, outcome measures, and intervention duration. Most studies comparing digital or blended education to traditional education reported significantly higher knowledge and skills scores in the intervention group. There was little or no between-group difference in patient outcomes or economic impact. Most studies were judged at a high or unclear risk of bias.

Conclusions

Digital education seems to be more effective than traditional education in improving diabetes management–related knowledge and skills. The paucity and low quality of the available evidence call for urgent and well-designed studies focusing on important outcomes such as health care professionals’ behavior, patient outcomes, and cost-effectiveness as well as its impact in diverse settings, including developing countries.

Mining databases for protein aggregation: a review

Protein aggregation is an active area of research in recent decades, since it is the most common and troubling indication of protein instability. Understanding the mechanisms governing protein aggregation and amyloidogenesis is a key component to the aetiology and pathogenesis of many devastating disorders, including Alzheimer's disease or type 2 diabetes. Protein aggregation data are currently found "scattered" in an increasing number of repositories, since advances in computational biology greatly influence this field of research. This review exploits the various resources of aggregation data and attempts to distinguish and analyze the biological knowledge they contain, by introducing protein-based, fragment-based and disease-based repositories, related to aggregation. In order to gain a broad overview of the available repositories, a novel comprehensive network maps and visualizes the current association between aggregation databases and other important databases and/or tools and discusses the beneficial role of community annotation. The need for unification of aggregation databases in a common platform is also addressed.

The MEDLINE experience at Yale: 1986-1996

The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library began providing end-user access to MEDLINE in 1986 and switched to the OVID system in 1993. MEDLINE is a core service of the library, and the choice of delivery systems has had a significant impact throughout the Yale-New Haven Medical Center. This paper describes the user response to MEDLINE, discusses the effects of MEDLINE on other library services, and suggests ways in which technology, policy, and funding have influenced use. Yale's experience suggests that removing barriers in all three areas can dramatically expand the points of access, the number of users, and the amount of use with manageable effects on other library services.

Use of the Internet for educational applications in prosthodontics

Internet is the common term for the information superhighway. The Internet has become a major information resource for educational, governmental, and business institutions. This article reviews the current operation of the Internet as a background for discussing educational opportunities for instruction in prosthodontics. Electronic mail, news groups, file transfer protocol, Gopher, and network navigators are discussed. The use of the World Wide Web for educational purposes by The Ohio State University College of Dentistry Department of Restorative and Prosthetic Dentistry is described.

Accessing MEDLINE from the dental office

Electronic access to on-line information is now available for dentists. One such resource is MEDLINE, a database of more than 7,500,000 biomedical references indexed by the National Library of Medicine. MEDLINE searching can be performed on-line or locally using a CD-ROM drive. Dentists should evaluate equipment requirements, availability of training, extent of the bibliographic database, ease of using the searching software and adequacy of documentation before selecting a mode of MEDLINE access.