Integrating Targeted MedlinePlus Health Prescriptions Into Clinic Practice Workflow

Providing patient education in an outpatient practice can be challenging in part due to the
variety of patient medical conditions and the quantity of materials needed. Increasingly,
electronic resources such as those found on the internet have the potential to provide
easily accessible needed information. However, clinicians do not have the time to assemble a
list of websites for their patients and even if they did, the quality of information varies
greatly and would require close screening. MedlinePlus is a free National Library of
Medicine sponsored website that features health information on hundreds of conditions with
all information carefully screened for quality standards by expert librarians. We will
conduct a pilot study to seamlessly integrate provider-customized MedlinePlus health
education prescriptions for specific conditions into the normal clinic workflow to motivate
patients to access and expand their use of MedlinePlus to benefit their health. As HIV
prevention/education is very important, we will include the HIV clinic as well as a general
internal medicine clinic.

Inclusion Criteria:

- To be included in the study population, patients must also be seen by their physician
for one of the 21 target health conditions (Allergic Rhinitis, Asthma, Back Pain,
Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy, Bursitis, Depression/Anxiety, Diabetes Mellitus,
Esophageal Reflux, HIV, Hyperlipidemia, Hypertension, Insomnia, Irritable Bowel
Syndrome, Obesity, Osteoporosis (senile), Shoulder Pain, Sinusitis, Symptomatic
Menopause, Urinary Incontinence, Urinary Tract Infection, Vaginitis) and be willing
to provide an email address.

- Patients will be included only once.

- All patients in the intervention and the control group will receive the survey.

- All physicians and staff at the Fairview Clinic and HIV Clinic will be invited to
complete the physician or staff survey.

Exclusion Criteria:

- No email address