As an ongoing community outreach project, a pictorial touch-screen kiosk and Web site was developed for 48 MedlinePlus® tutorials. This learning experience serves Davidson County, Tennessee’s uninsured patients at the University of Tennessee/Baptist Hospital’s Internal Medicine Clinic. The availability of a health information kiosk at the University of Tennessee/Baptist Hospital primary care clinic significantly increases health literacy for patients by providing reliable, physician-recommended information in an appropriate format—information these patients did not previously find readily available. Participants report they have a greater understanding of their health issues, and the project is introducing hundreds of patients to MedlinePlus.

Personal digital assistants (PDAs) allow users to access a wide variety of electronic information and software at the point of patient care; however, 62% of the PDA users in this study indicated that they experienced multiple (one or more) barriers to their clinical PDA information retrieval. The majority of the users responded that the lack of software and the lack of PDA memory were the primary barriers. Online searches for medical information can provide immediate access for patient care, but 88% of the respondents used the PDAs for online searching less than once a week. Health science librarians have the skills to provide resources that provide free PDA software and PDA training classes to help eliminate deterrents to PDA use.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract