Visualizing Patterns and Trends of 25 Years of Published Health Literacy Research.

Background: With an increase in the number of disciplines contributing to health literacy scholarship, we sought to explore the nature of interdisciplinary research in the field.

Objective: This study sought to describe disciplines that contribute to health literacy research and to quantify how disciplines draw from and contribute to an interdisciplinary evidence base, as measured by citation networks.

Methods: We conducted a literature search for health literacy articles published between 1991 and 2015 in four bibliographic databases, producing 6,229 unique bibliographic records.

Understanding Internet access and use to facilitate patient portal adoption.

Understanding the information-seeking preferences and Internet access habits of the target audiences for a patient portal is essential for successful uptake. The resource must deliver culturally and educationally appropriate information via technology that is accessible to the intended users and be designed to meet their needs and preferences. Providers must consider multiple perspectives when launching a portal and make any needed adjustments once the launch is underway.

The long-term financial impact of electronic health record implementation.

Objective: To examine the financial impact of electronic health record (EHR) implementation on ambulatory practices.

Methods: We tracked the practice productivity (ie, number of patient visits) and reimbursement of 30 ambulatory practices for 2 years after EHR implementation and compared each practice to their pre-EHR implementation baseline.

Results: Reimbursements significantly increased after EHR implementation even though practice productivity (ie, the number of patient visits) decreased over the 2-year observation period.

Assessing internet access and use in a medically underserved population: implications for providing enhanced health information services.

Background: The relationship between health information seeking, patient engagement and health literacy is not well understood. This is especially true in medically underserved populations, which are often viewed as having limited access to health information.

Objective: To improve communication between an urban health centre and the community it serves, a team of library and information science researchers undertook an assessment of patients' level and methods of access to and use of the Internet.

Applying evidence in practice: a qualitative case study of the factors affecting residents' decisions.

Patient care based on best available evidence is increasingly viewed as the hallmark of good quality medical diagnosis and treatment, yet its uptake is often slow and uneven and the reasons underlying the slow diffusion of evidence-based guidelines remain elusive. The authors report a qualitative study conducted at a major US teaching hospital which sought to discover the reasons why an evidence-based anticoagulation guideline appeared to be applied irregularly, with problematic results. Using a theoretical framework derived from Rogers' work on the diffusion of innovation, this article describes the ways in which a group of residents evaluated and applied evidence in the context of caring for their patients.