Developing the evidentiary basis for family medicine in the global context: The Besrour Papers: a series on the state of family medicine in the world.

Objective: To provide an overview of the main methodologic challenges to finding definitive evidence of the positive effects of family medicine and family medicine training on a global scale.

Composition Of The Committee: In 2012, 2013, and 2014, the College of Family Physicians of Canada hosted the Besrour Conferences to reflect on its role in advancing the discipline of family medicine globally. The Besrour Papers Working Group, which was struck at the 2013 conference, was tasked with developing a series of papers to highlight the key issues, lessons learned, and outcomes emerging from the various activities of the Besrour collaboration.

Development and content validation of the information assessment method for patients and consumers.

Background: Online consumer health information addresses health problems, self-care, disease prevention, and health care services and is intended for the general public. Using this information, people can improve their knowledge, participation in health decision-making, and health. However, there are no comprehensive instruments to evaluate the value of health information from a consumer perspective.

Continuing professional development and social accountability: a review of the literature.

The idea that health professionals should be accountable to the society they serve is not a new concept and by the 1990 s, the continuing professional development (CPD) of health professionals was being seen as one way in which Canadians' level of health could be improved. The public was, and is still today, increasingly demanding a system that is more responsive to regional and community needs. As a result, there is a need for more health professional education at all stages of the education continuum - undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing professional development - that meets the health and social needs of the populations being served.

A new impact assessment method to evaluate knowledge resources.

Rationale: Methods to systematically measure the impact of knowledge resources on health professionals would enhance evaluation of these resources in the real world.

Objective: To propose a new impact assessment method.

Background: We demonstrated the feasibility of combining a 4-level scale with Computerized Ecological Momentary Assessment (CEMA) for efficiently measuring the impact of a knowledge resource.

Impact of clinical information-retrieval technology on physicians: a literature review of quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies.

Purpose: This paper appraises empirical studies examining the impact of clinical information-retrieval technology on physicians and medical students.

Methods: The world literature was reviewed up to February 2004. Two reviewers independently identified studies by scrutinising 3368 and 3249 references from bibliographic databases.

Improving on-line skills and knowledge. A randomized trial of teaching rural physicians to use on-line medical information.

Objective: To assess the change in frequency and methods with which a pilot group of rural physicians consulted on-line medical resources before and after an educational intervention.

Design: Physicians were randomly assigned to an educational intervention or control group. Self-administered questionnaires were completed before and 3 months after the intervention.