A nice AORN Journal article outlining a scheme for evaluating the quality and credibility of health information web sites.  Included are tips for assessing bias in a web site, looking for valid recommendations, and ultimately, deciding whether or not the web site will help patients.  Also mentioned is the 15-item DISCERN questionnaire for evaluating the quality of written health information.

A nice article tracing the history, development and future challenges of providing enhanced, freely-accessible information from the National Library of Medicine.

An interesting pair of brief editorials in the May 2008 issue of Chest about whether or not EBM has a sound scientific base.

A recent article from Health Services Research highlights something heard casually: newer graduates report a greater influence from practice guidelines.

Are the potential savings from robust health care IT applications overstated?  The Congressional Budget Office thinks so.

A May 7 JAMA commentary discusses the recently revised Public Health Service clinical practice guideline Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence: 2008 Update. A panel reviewed more than 8,700 articles on smoking cessation.  The guideline details the 7 medications currently approved by the FDA for helping smokers quit, and the growing importance of counseling, especially via national “quitlines.”

This editorial from BMJ details pilot efforts to roll out a personal e-health record.  These records have the potential to be a good way of assessing and documenting patient preferences, one of the components in practicing EBM.

This commentary, and the article it references, deal with the quality of guidelines.  The authors of the study have analyzed the quality of guidelines in critical care medicine, and the commentary cites key reasons why guideline acceptance and quality should concern practitioners, payers and the public.

In the February 2008 Canadian Family Physician, a librarian has written this article describing an algorithm for answering clinical questions.  The level of resources is more granular than the traditional EBM pyramid of resources, and the algorithm suggests clinicians implement their own research protocol if a search will not answer their question.

See the story at WSJ.com.