Information-seeking behavior changes in community-based teaching practices.

A National Library of Medicine information access grant allowed for a collaborative project to provide computer resources in fourteen clinical practice sites that enabled health care professionals to access medical information via PubMed and the Internet. Health care professionals were taught how to access quality, cost-effective information that was user friendly and would result in improved patient care. Selected sites were located in medically underserved areas and received a computer, a printer, and, during year one, a fax machine.

Framework for improved communication: the Dermatology Lexicon Project.

A standardized dermatology vocabulary is central to our collective ability to gather clinical information consistently for patient care, to retrieve information for research or disease management, as well as to conduct outcomes analysis for quality improvement. The deficiencies of current classifications have been recognized by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) in their decision to fund the development of a standard complete reference terminology for dermatology. The Dermatology Lexicon will have a major impact both on clinical care and on dermatologic research.