What iS online dataBaSe:
revieW of online mediCal dataBaSeS
rai a K** KMC Teaching Hospital, Sinamangal, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Address for correspondence :
Mr. Arun Kumar Rai
KMC Teaching Hospital, Sinamangal, Kathmandu, Nepal. Email: [email protected]
Received Date : 17th Feb, 2006 Accepted Date : 12th Sep, 2006
History of Internet goes back to 1960 when RAND Corporation of America made public the first network with principle that there would not be any central authority. The National Physical Laboratory in UK set –up the first test network in 1968. In 1969 ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency Net) was created on the principle of RAND.
A revolution of the 20th century is the invention of Internet. Internet is a vast international network of electronic system that links host computer and users in a digital web. With the usage of Internet, it becomes possible to access and download various information. In early 1990s the Internet experienced explosive growth. Every year the number of computer got doubled and it has been estimated that by 2020 every one would have an email address and websites. Database
Database is an organised set of data (various information) that is stored in a computer and can be accessed at, and used in various ways. There are two types of databases:
· ONLINE Database · OFFLINE Database
ONLINE Database
The ONLINE database is the database which is accessible via a computer or computer network, basically with the help of Internet. It can be accessed, downloaded, printed with the help of Internet from anywhere in the World where Internet is available.
The Online database typically refers to being connected to the Internet or other remote service. When we connect via modem, we are online after you dial in and log on to our Internet provider with our username and password. When we log off, we are offline. With cable modem and DSL service we are online all the time.
OFFLINE Database
The OFFLINE database is the database, which is accessible via a computer. The database that is not under the control of a central computer, as in a manufacturing process or experiment. It is not connected to a computer or computer network. The data may be stored on computer or CD, Tapes, DVD, MOD or others storage materials. To access and retrieve or print, we do not need Internet facility.
JNMA, Oct - Dec, 2006, 45 Now comes an important question- “What do people do
with the Internet?” They do basically four thing with the Internet-Mail, group discussion, long distance computing and file transfer.
ONLINE Database helps us as mentioned below: 1. It saves time and gives a quick accurate and efficient
information
2. It is easy to search and locate the information 3. Retrieving of required information is at a much faster
rate
Health information, which is available on the web/database, needs to be treated with some caution. Some websites have commercial backing and may be biased in their approach, while others may rely on out-of-date or inaccurate information and may not have had any input from health care professionals. Even after running a search on a reputable online database such as Pubmed, one needs to critically assess the quality of individual papers.
Some online medical databases are given below which is very resourceful way to get the right health information. Cochrane Databases (www.cochrane.org)
The Cochrane Library consists of a regularly updated collection of evidence-based medicine databases, including The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. One can browse and search abstracts of reviews free of charge here. Cochrane Collaboration is an international, non-profit, independent organisation, established to ensure that up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of healthcare interventions is readily available worldwide. It produces and disseminates systematic reviews of healthcare interventions, and promotes the search for evidence in the form of clinical trials and other studies of the effects of interventions.
The Cochrane Collaboration was established in 1993, and named after the epidemiologist, Archie Cochrane (1909-1988), a British medical researcher who contributed greatly to the development of epidemiology as a science. The organisation benefits from thousands of contributors
worldwide, working collaboratively from within many independent groups of people (‘entities’). For this reason, the term ‘collaboration’ is used. The Cochrane Collaboration’s principles include fostering good communication, open decision-making and teamwork; reducing barriers to contributing; and encouraging diversity.
The Cochrane library has built up a reputation for being the best single source of reliable evidence-based information, but is actually a collection of seven different databases. It is freely available throughout the UK and to most developing countries. It is made up the following databases:
· The Central Register of Controlled Trial · The Cochrone Database of Systematic Review · The Cochrone Database of Methodology Review · The Cochrane Methodology Register
· Database of Abstracts of Review of Effects · HealthTechnology Assessment Database · NHS Economic Evaluation Database
Combined Health Information Database (www.chid.nih.gov) Combined Health Information Database (CHID) is a bibliographic database produced by health–related agencies of the Federal Government. This database provides titles, abstracts, and availability information for health information and health education resources. CHID lists a wealth of health promotion and education materials and program descriptions that are not indexed elsewhere. New records are added quarterly, and current listings are checked regularly to help ensure that entries are up to date and still available from their original sources. Some older records are retained for archival purposes. CHID is updated four times a year. The updated database is available at the end of these months: January, April, July, and October.
Current Contents Clinical Medicine Database (www. scienctific.thomson.com)
Current Contents / Clinical Medicine provides access to complete bibliographic information from articles, editorials, meeting abstracts, commentaries, and all other
significant items in recently published editions of over 1,120 of the world’s leading clinical medicine journals and books in a broad range of categories.
Special Feature
· Key Advantages and Capabilities
· Helps users stay up-to-date in their research · Provides a complete picture of today’s global research
in clinical medicine by combining comprehensive coverage with meticulous indexing, exclusive search capabilities, and optional coverage of past research and proceedings data
· Saves research time by providing one source for a variety of research data - including author abstracts, author addresses, and more information per bibliographic record than in other resources
EMBASE /Excerpta Medica Database (www.ovid.com/ site/catalog/database)
A major biomedical and pharmaceutical database well known for its international scope and timely, in-depth indexing.
EMBASE from Elsevier B.V. is a comprehensive pharmacological and biomedical database renowned for extensive indexing of drug information from 4,550 journals published in 70 countries. It is one of the most current biomedical databases available.
Fully indexed citations and complete author abstracts appear on average twenty days after receipt of the journal - most appear earlier. Each record contains the full bibliographic citation, indexing terms and codes. More than 80% of the records contain abstracts. The database includes EMTREE, a hierarchically ordered controlled thesaurus, which contains 46,000 preferred terms and more than 200,000 synonyms. Specialty subsets of EMBASE are also available.
· Specific Subjects: · Internal Medicine · General Medicine · Primary Care · Family Medicine · General Practice
(Health InterNetwork Research Initiative) (www. healthinternetwork.org)
The HINARI collection of full-text online journals now offers more than 3207 titles.
The Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) provides free or very low cost online access to the major journals in biomedical and related social sciences to local, not-for-profit institutions in developing countries. It was developed in the framework of the Health InterNetwork, introduced by the United Nations’ Secretary General Kofi Annan at the UN Millennium Summit in the year 2000.
HINARI was launched in January 2002, with some 1500 journals from 6 major publishers: Blackwell, Elsevier Science, the Harcourt Worldwide STM Group, Wolters Kluwer International Health & Science, Springer Verlag and John Wiley, following the principles in a Statement of Intent signed in July 2001.
The HINARI program, set up by WHO together with major publishers, enables developing countries to gain access to one of the world’s largest collections of biomedical and health literature. Over 3200 journal titles are now available to health institutions in 113 countries, benefiting many thousands of health workers and researchers, and in turn, contributing to improved world health.
Who is eligible for HINARI?
Local, not-for-profit institutions in two groups of countries may register for access to the journals through HINARI. The country lists are based on GNP per capita (World Bank figures, 2001). Institutions in countries with GNP per capita below $1000 are eligible for free access. Institutions in countries with GNP per capita between $1000-$3000 pay a fee of $1000 per year / institution.
Eligible categories of institutions are: national universities, research institutes. Professional schools (medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health, dentistry), teaching hospitals, government offices and national medical libraries. All staff members and students are entitled to access to the journals.
JNMA, Oct - Dec, 2006, 45 How to join?
To register your institution, please complete the on-line HINARI registration form. Only one registration is required per institution.
They will send you a licence agreement to sign on terms of use, and instructions for getting started.
Maternal and Child Health Library Database (www. mchlibrary.info)
The Maternal and Child Health Library (MCH Library Database) provides the MCH community with accurate and timely information on a broad range of topic. Material includes the weekly newsletter MCH Alert, resources guides, full text publication, database, and links to quality MCH site.
The MCH Library is funded under a cooperative agreement (U02 MC 0001) with the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The MCH Library publishes the MCH Alert; produces databases; develops knowledge paths, bibliographies, and other information resources; maintains this Web site to provide access to key MCH-related data and information; and promotes the awareness and use of MCH information. Its physical collection is the Mary C. Egan Maternal and Child Health Library, one of the six libraries of Georgetown University.
The MCH Library is part of the National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health (NCEMCH), at Georgetown University. Founded in 1982, NCEMCH provides leadership and state-of-the-art knowledge related to MCH issues to help federal, state, and local policymakers, public health professionals, and the public make informed decisions about MCH services, programs, and policies.
MEDLINE Database (www.nccbi.nlm.gov)
MEDLINE database is the bibliographic database, compiled by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) and published on the Web by Community of Science.
MEDLINE is the world’s most comprehensive source of life sciences and biomedical bibliographic information. It contains nearly eleven million records from over 7,300 different publications from 1965 to today. It is updated weekly.
MEDLINE (Medline, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online) is a comprehensive literature database of life sciences and biomedical information. It covers the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and the health care system. As perhaps a side effect of covering these fields, it also manages to cover nearly all of biology and biochemistry, even covering fields with no direct medical connection, such as molecular evolution.
It is compiled by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) and freely available on the Internet through PubMed, searchable with the Entrez engine. Photoshare Searchable Database (www.photoshare.org) This is the online database which help to browse through thousands of health and development photographs categorized and indexed for easy searching. Photoshare is a service of The INFO (Information & Knowledge for Optimal Health) Project helping international, non-profit organizations communicate health and development issues through photography.
Developed exclusively for educational and non-profit purposes, Photoshare is a one-of-a-kind photo collection covering a broad range of subjects in international development, with a focus on public health. Our on-line image database currently contains more than 10,000-catalogued images related to global health, such as:
· Family Planning and Reproductive Health · HIV/AIDS
· Maternal and Child Health · Environment
· Humanitarian Assistance
· Democracy and Governance
· Agricultural and Economic Development
subject, country, region, photographer, Project, or Image Number.
POPLINE Database (www.popline.org)
POPLINE (POPulation information onLINE), the world’s largest database on reproductive health, provides more than 300,000 citations with abstracts to scientific articles, reports, books, and unpublished reports in the field of population, family planning, and related health issues. POPLINE has numerous special features including links to free, full text documents; the ability to limit your search to peer-reviewed journal articles; and many abstracts in French and Spanish.
POPLINE is maintained by the POPLINE Staff of the INFO Project at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs and is funded primarily by the United States Agency for International Development.
ProQuest Database (www.proquest.co.uk)
ProQuest Information and Learning is a global leader in the collection, organisation and distribution of value-added information to researchers, faculty and students in libraries, government institutions, universities and schools worldwide.
Since 1938, ProQuest has set the standard for the preservation of and access to scholarship, culture and history, by proudly providing global access to one of the biggest online content repositories and the largest commercially available microform vault collections in the world.
Renowned for the seamless provision of electronic and microfilm information, ProQuest offers instant access to a vast range of content: current and historical periodicals; newspapers; dissertations; out-of-print books and scholarly information.
Our archive includes more than 5.5 billion pages of information, spanning 500 years of scholarship, in formats that range from print to microform and digital. Subject coverage extends across business and economics; science,
technology and medicine; general reference; humanities and social sciences.
Source Database (www.asksource.info)
Source is an international information support centre providing free online access to 2000 comprehensive information sources and organization in the field of international health and disability issues, with links to full text resources provided where possible.
The focus is a grassroots information, evaluation, training, health communication, and information management. British Medical Journal (www.bmj.com)
We can get the full text of all articles of BMJ from January 1994 onwards for all countries. If we register with BMJ they will send us regular e-mail about topics in the current issue and articles on subject of our choice. Meanwhile, BMJ Publishing Group has announced free online access to its specialist journal such as Gut, Heat, and Thorax for 100 of the poorest countries. About 23 of their journals have been available free to 50 poor countries for almost a year. Medscape Database (www.medscape.com)
The database has one of the largest collections of free, full text peer reviewed medical articles. Registration is required but is free. This site also provides a special home page that customize the site towards our interest when we log in. MD Consult (www.mdconsult.com)
We can register yearly for a fee for reading medical books and searching for references with full text article delivery. A disadvantage is that one cannot read through full issues of any particular journal of our choice. This is very useful site for gathering data for research purposes and academic presentation.
English National Board Health Care Database: (www. enb.org.uk/hcd.htm):
A database of journal references primary of interest to nurses, midwives and health visitors.
JNMA, Oct - Dec, 2006, 45 AMED database (www.silverplatter.com)
Cover a range of complementary and alternative medicine including homeopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture and so on.
SUM Search
(www.SUMSearch.uthscasa.edu):
A new method of searching the Internet for evidence based medical information.
ConCluSion
A key characteristics of the information age today is the growth of information services of various kinds with the advent of the computing age, as well as increasing awareness of the value of information in personal, organizational and national activities, a combination of diverse new information services based on modern information and communication technologies are necessary.
Internet can play an important role in making the dreams of Lancaster of “Paperless Society” and the great stalwart Dr. S.R Ranganathan to provide information to user “ or Every user his /her information.
referenCeS
1 Hay, Robert A.(1998) How to Write and Publish a Scientific Papers, 5th ed. london: Cambridge University Press.
2 Greenhalgh, trisha.(2001) How to read a Paper: the Basics of Evidence Based Medicine, 2nd ed. london: BMJ Books.
3 lancaster, F.W.libraries and librarian in an age of Electronic (1982); Washington d.C. information resource Press.
4 iaSliC Bulletin;Vol.49, No.3; September 2004.
5 library Herald (Journal of the delhi Public library association); Vol.38, No.3&4; october-december 2000.
6 Sterling, Bruce. (Feb.1993). History of the internet..Magazine Fantasy and Science Fiction.
7 HEALTH Alert- Asia-Pacific Edition.No.6, 2005 8 info Population report No.53; december, 2005
9 Community Eye Health Journal; Vol.18, No56; december 2005. 10 Putman, NC. Searching MEdliNE free on the internet using
the National library of Medicine’s PubMed. Clin.Excell.Nurse Pract.1998 Sept; 2 (5): 314-6.
11 thacker, Naveen. (2003) Computer for doctors, 1st ed. New delhi:
Jaypee Brother Medical Publishers Various websites: www.answer.com www.cebm.net www.clinicalevidence.com www.cochrane.org www.freemedicaljournal .com www.google.com www.healthinternetwork.org www.healthnet.org.np www.nelh.nhs.uk www.nepaldrugs.com www.nice.org.uk www.omni.ac.uk www.photoshare.org www.pubmed.com www.scholar.google.com www.xenomed.com www.yahoo.com