Outreach News:
MEDLINEplus – Ever Improving

MEDLINEplus is the premiere consumer health web site from the National Library of Medicine. Since its inception, MEDLINEplus has maintained a constant rate of change and improvements. December saw another major advancement as NLM changed the web site to enhance people’s ability to navigate the site.

The site now sports three columns with the main sections located on the left. These include health topics, drug information, medical encyclopedia, dictionaries and more. The middle column contains news, the featured site and a new In the Spotlight section.

The third column provides a link on the top level of the site to the 150+ interactive tutorials available on MEDLINEplus. These tutorials provide easy to understand programs outlining certain diseases and conditions, tests and diagnostic procedures, surgery and treatment procedures and sections on prevention and wellness. Each tutorial provides text with or without audio. This is tremendously helpful for patients with literacy or sight problems. Most tutorials discuss the anatomy of the area, what happens during a procedure, discusses risks and more. For example, if a patient wanted to learn more about LASIK surgery for reshaping the eye, the tutorial would take him through the anatomy of the eye, outline preparations the patient will go through prior to surgery, discuss the procedure, and cover risks and possible complications.

Another major advancement is the creation of a Spanish language version of MEDLINEplus. The espanol link in the top right corner leads users to information on health topics and interactive tutorials in Spanish.

The MEDLINEplus web site is available at http://medlineplus.gov or via the Arkansas HealthLINK consumer health web site at: http://www.arhealthlink.org.

If you would like additional information or a full demonstration of MEDLINEplus please contact Susan Steelman at 501-686-6737 or email SteelmanSusanC@uams.edu.

Susan Steelman, MLIS