Medical informatics and evidence based medicine resources
Unit 1 : informatics


How to surf the web without getting soaked!   
Some thoughts on how to critically use the web for health related information. This is a handout of a presentation for the Canadian Paediatric Society annual meeting in 1998.

McMaster Health Information Research Unit.   
This site will give you an idea of some to the health informatics activities at McMaster. Dr. Alex Jadad is the director of HIRU.

Cochrane Collaboration
The Cochrane Collaboration is one of the most important developments in medical informatics. Take some time to learn about it and about meta-analysis as a method of combining clinical trials. We know that it is impossible to "keep up" with the medical literature by browsing journals. We all need to adopt a more focussed, "problem oriented" approach. What to do when several studies reach conflicting conclusions? The Cochrane Collaboration encapsulates the results of well done studies, providing the "bottom line" from the best data. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews of the literature is available on HSLinks. An invaluable resource.

Evidence-based medicine and evidence-based practice resources
From the Ottawa Hospital Library Services, a great selection of links to EBM resources from around the world.

The Evidence-based Medicine Toolbox  
From the NHS Centre for Evidence-based Medicine, this is "an assortment of materials which are very useful for practitioners of EBM". There are aids to doing common critical appraisal calculations and good discussions of EBM / critical appraisal topics. Highly recommended!

Palm Tools for EBM Home Page
Portable (in a Palm handheld) version of guides on reading and using the medical literature. Calculations used in analysis of studies are provided and explained. Very nice package, and it's free!

 

Clinical practice guidelines ....