ABSTRACT
Researchers at the University of Iowa are developing an integrated academic information management system (IAIMS) for use on the World Wide Web. The focus is on integrating continuing medical education (CME) into the clinicians' daily work and incorporating consumer health information into patients' life styles. Phase I of the project consists of loosely integrating patients' data, printed library information, and digital library information. Phase II consists of more tightly integrating the three types of information, and Phase III consists of awarding CME credits for reviewing educational, material at the point of patient care, when it has the most potential for improving outcomes. This IAIMS serves a statewide population. Its design and evolution have been heavily influenced by user-centered evaluation.
Subject(s)
Computer Communication Networks/organization & administration , Computer-Assisted Instruction/methods , Education, Medical, Continuing/organization & administration , Hospital Information Systems/organization & administration , Integrated Advanced Information Management Systems/organization & administration , Attitude to Computers , Evaluation Studies as Topic , Humans , Point-of-Care Systems/organization & administrationABSTRACT
An evaluation was conducted at the University of Iowa Health Sciences Library to determine what effect the user's presence had on MEDLINE search results. One hundred users participated over a four-month period. Three main criteria were used: search precision, search recall, and user satisfaction. Each MEDLINE search was processed twice, once prior to the user's arrival and a second time during the scheduled appointment with the user. The two searches for each user were processed by different searchers, and four searchers alternated processing the user-absent or the user-present search. Users were asked to compare the citations on the two searchers by checking each printout for relevant citations. A short questionnaire was administered to determine general information about users and satisfaction measures for each search. The extensiveness of the interview for the user-absent search was varied in order to determine if the depth of the initial interview would affect the search results. Evaluation of the findings indicated an increase in precision, recall, and user satisfaction for the user-present search. Some difficulties in designing the experiment are discussed and implications of the evaluation results are considered.
