D'Alessandro D M, D'Alessandro M P, Galvin J R, Kash J B, Wakefield D S, Erkonen W E
Department of Pediatrics, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City 52242, USA.
Bull Med Libr Assoc. 1998 Oct;86(4):583-93.
Rural physicians need access to quality medical information, but accessing information is difficult in rural settings. Digital health sciences libraries (DHSLs) offer the potential to make information more accessible to rural physicians. A telemedicine network was deployed to six rural hospitals in Iowa. Computers were installed allowing access to a DHSL and training sessions were held. The purpose of this study was to examine the barriers to use of a DHSL by rural physicians.
Approximately one year after deployment of the telemedicine network, physicians were surveyed using a modified critical incident technique.
Seventy percent of the eligible physicians responded and 33% had used the DHSL. Primary barriers included insufficient training, being too time consuming to use, and distance of computers from physicians' practice sites. Non-DHSL users cited the difficulty of using the DHSL as their greatest barrier, while DHSL users cited the quality of the information resources.
This study identifies a number of barriers that exist to rural physicians use of a DHSL. Potential solutions to these barriers are discussed. DHSLs will finally reach their potential when they can be delivered by easy to use handheld computers seamlessly integrated into the rural physician's workflow.
乡村医生需要获取高质量的医学信息，但在乡村环境中获取信息存在困难。数字健康科学图书馆（DHSLs）为乡村医生更便捷地获取信息提供了可能。一个远程医疗网络被部署到爱荷华州的六家乡村医院。安装了计算机以允许访问DHSL，并举办了培训课程。本研究的目的是调查乡村医生使用DHSL的障碍。
在远程医疗网络部署约一年后，使用改良的关键事件技术对医生进行调查。
70%符合条件的医生做出了回应，33%使用过DHSL。主要障碍包括培训不足、使用耗时过长以及计算机与医生工作地点的距离。未使用DHSL的用户将使用DHSL的困难视为最大障碍，而使用DHSL的用户则提到了信息资源的质量。
本研究确定了乡村医生使用DHSL存在的一些障碍。讨论了这些障碍的潜在解决方案。当DHSL能够通过无缝集成到乡村医生工作流程中的易于使用的手持计算机提供时，它们最终将发挥其潜力。
