Introduction
Theresa J. Jordan
McGraw Hill
ISBN 0-8385-9272-4
304 pages
$29.95
Understanding Medical Information serves as an introduction to grasping the elements of information and research that need to be incorporated in today's evidence-based world of medicine. The text recognizes the ever-increasing complexity of keeping pace with the development, management, assessment, and accessibility of the current body of medical information and knowledge. Warning its readers to "Keep far from me the delusion that I can accomplish all things" (page 8), it sets the stage for individuals to have healthy respect for and realistic expectations of their interaction with the world outlined for them in this book.
The author, Theresa J. Jordan, a medical informatics specialist for the New Jersey Medical School, employs an eclectic mix of anecdotes, history, quotes, stories, annotated references, bibliographies, and science to present her case. The elements come together to provide background on a complex subject in a very digestible manner. Given that the audience focus of the book is primarily students from the medical fields who seek to discover how the information they need to provide effective care is best understood and utilized, this author has aptly addressed their needs.
Jordan nicely places the topic of medical information in the context of the world it aims to clarify. In each chapter, she provides an appropriate framework for the facts she communicates. Topics covered include medical reasoning and the limits of medical information, the explosion of available medical information, types and areas of medical research, making treatment decisions and prognostic judgments, and how these actions intersect with bodies of medical knowledge. Although the text doesn't delve as deeply into evidence-based medicine as the Greenhalgh text reviewed here last year,[1] Understanding Medical Information does provide similar discussions of the structure of research to illustrate the tenets of the movement.
The book doesn't attempt to be a user's guide to finding medical information. Nor does it create a pathway into the future of medical information and what that future holds for effective and enhanced information development and dissemination, although it does touch on both of these topics. A thoughtful discussion of artificial intelligence and its strengths and weaknesses is highlighted here. However, no in-depth treatment of the role of handheld or mobile computers, for example, or of bringing patient information to the bedside, or computerized practitioner order entry, is included. Understanding Medical Information does serve a practical goal of laying some groundwork on upcoming improvements for the reader, but stops a little short of providing much insight and speculation as to what glories lay ahead in the field of medical informatics.
A notable omission is the nod to the role medical librarians play in assisting medical professionals with information gathering. Research has been done documenting the value of the role of the librarian in clinical medicine[2] and the negative effects of not involving information professionals when research needs to go beyond electronic tools to access medical knowledge.[3] Given these facts, an acknowledgment of the librarian's role in managing, maintaining, and providing access to the wealth of medical knowledge and its ever-changing format in today's Web-based information environment would have been a welcome addition to the content.
That caveat aside, the introduction here to the elements of literature and research and how they can best be applied to providing care is an accessible read for those beginning the journey into the labyrinth of digesting and understanding medical information.
© 2002 Medscape
Cite this: Understanding Medical Information: A User's Guide to Informatics and Decision Making - Medscape - May 03, 2002.
