A group of voluntary health organizations and scientific publishers today announced next year's launch of patientINFORM. From the press release: 'Scheduled to launch as a pilot project in Spring 2005, patientINFORM is a free, online service dedicated to disseminating original medical research directly to consumers. A collaborative effort of leading voluntary health organizations, scholarly and medical publishers, medical societies, and information professionals, patientINFORM will provide patients and their caregivers with online access to up-to-date, reliable research for specific diseases. Participating voluntary health organizations will integrate the information into materials created for patients and link to free full-text research articles and additional selected material on journal websites....This groundbreaking initiative is being driven by recent trends indicating that public awareness of clinical research, heightened by media coverage and fueled by the spread of broadband Internet, has led more and more patients to go online to find the latest information about treatment options. Still, even many knowledgeable consumers can find it difficult to fully understand, evaluate, and make sound decisions based on what they learn from their Internet research. "The health literacy problem has been called a 'silent epidemic' because many patients are embarrassed or intimidated and do not seek help to understand difficult or complicated information. The result is that a crucial part of their medical care is missing, and so they put their health at risk," said Richard Kahn, Ph.D., chief scientific and medical officer of the American Diabetes Association.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/08/2004 05:49:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
