Community response grids: using information technology to help communities respond to bioterror emergencies.

Access to accurate and trusted information is vital in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from an emergency. To facilitate response in large-scale emergency situations, Community Response Grids (CRGs) integrate Internet and mobile technologies to enable residents to report information, professional emergency responders to disseminate instructions, and residents to assist one another. CRGs use technology to help residents and professional emergency responders to work together in community response to emergencies, including bioterrorism events.

Information needs and information seeking in community medical education.

Purpose: To investigate information needs and information seeking in primary care practices serving as educational sites.

Method: The authors interviewed 15 community-based primary care physician-preceptors, once when the preceptor was working without a student and once when a student was present at the practice (in which case, the student was interviewed as well). The interview asked for questions that had arisen during the patient encounter or teaching moment that would need further investigation.

A network model for improving access to food and nutrition data.

In this article we propose a network in which existing food composition and consumption databases are linked through a master database of complete and detailed food descriptions. The proposal arises from an analysis of the importance of food data, their descriptive and analytical nature, and their uses. Lack of detail and standardization in food description hinders the retrieval of food and nutrition data from various databases and the integration of such data.