Should We Google It? Resource Use by Internal Medicine Residents for Point-of-Care Clinical Decision Making

Abstract

The findings suggest that internal medicine residents use UpToDate most frequently, followed by consultation with faculty and the search engines Google and Google Scholar; speed, trust, and portability are the biggest drivers for resource selection; and time and information overload appear to be the biggest barriers to resources such as Ovid MEDLINE. Residents frequently used Google and may benefit from further training in information management skills.

The University of Manitoba Psychiatry Toolkit: Development and Evaluation

“…Our respondents' preferred information sources used to meet information needs related to medications, treatments, and continuing professional development are consistent with reports in literature [1,2,4,7,8], namely electronic resources and (other) colleagues. Time and poor search skills were stated key barriers to accessing web-available health information.…”

“…Although preliminary, these findings suggest that for its users, the Psychiatry Toolkit may be seen as being an efficient and effective tool. There is increasing acknowledgment that answering clinical questions (as they present) affects patient care and that point-of-care learning is an important component of continuing professional development [1,2,7]. According to these studies, physicians place a high premium on efficiency and effectiveness in their choice of information resource at point-of-care.…”

“…In recent years online information search and retrieval has greatly changed with the introduction of meta-search filters and web-based point-of-care evidence-based information tools which facilitate faster and more accurately information search, and enable hand-held access to information that is portable and flexible [1][2][3]. These point-of-care tools are an efficient vehicle for learner education and continuing professional development, especially in an era of information saturation and evidence-based medicine.…”

“…A 2011 study of US psychiatrists found that over two-thirds of respondents prefer to answer a clinical question by first doing a search on a search engine such as Google rather than going to a specific website for information and that the main barriers for psychiatrists in finding needed medical information were as follows: (1) inability to find precise answers to specific patient questions; (2) valued resources are only available through subscriptions; and (3) difficulty gauging the reliability of information sources [6]. We developed the University of Manitoba Psychiatry Toolkit, a web-based resource that provides a filtered selection of relevant psychiatry and general medical resources and point-ofcare tools that can be used conveniently and accessed efficiently at point of need.…”

An experimental search strategy retrieves more precise results than PubMed and Google for questions about medical interventions

“…(DiCenso, Bayley, & Haynes , 2009) Accordingly, physicians commonly use online resources such as UpToDate. (Anonymous, 2014;Edson et al , 2010;Duran-Nelson et al , 2013) Unfortunately, summaries may not always suffice. The evidence-based summaries UpToDate, Dynamed (Anonymous , 2014b), FirstConsult (Anonymous , 2014), and ACP Smart Medicine (Anonymous , 2014a) have less than 5% overlap in the studies cited, which implies no resource is comprehensive (Ketchum, Saleh, & Jeong , 2011).…”