Online Healthcare and Nursing Courses
Krames Patient Education Online of the Washington Hospital Education System.
Accessible online at:
http://washingtonhospital.kramesonline.com/
This website consists of a voluminous database of information specifically intended for patients and other lay medical audiences. It is organized into two main sections: Health Sheets and Medications as depicted below. Each of those sections provides an alphabetized list of topics that allow users to easily click a letter to access all of the health topics or medications beginning with that letter.
HealthSheetsâ„¢
Adhering to the principles of health literacy, this extensive library of evidence-based, peer-reviewed information was written specifically for patients and covers diseases and conditions, diagnoses and treatments, surgeries and procedures, and wellness and safety for people of all ages and walks of life.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQR STUVWXYZ
Click a letter to see a list of conditions beginning with that letter.
Medications
This comprehensive drug reference answers your medication questions: 33,000 prescriptions, over-the-counter products, and nutraceuticals.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQR STUVWXYZ
Click a letter to see a list of medications beginning with that letter.
Clicking on a letter, such as “I” provides a long list of conditions with many options under each heading. For example, a simple search for Infection-related topics reveals the list of topics depicted in the box below. Clicking on any of those topics leads the user to individualized discussions of each topic with bullet points, illustrations, and side-bar topics of closely-related issues. If there is any criticism of this website it might be that it is primarily useful to users who are comfortable learning through reading. It might be improved by including audio-visual links such as to narrate auditory explanations and video files so that users who do not read particularly well or who do not absorb written information might have the same access to the information available on the website.
Infection of the Premature Infant
Infection, Clostridium difficile
Infection, Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
Infection, Preventing the Spread of Infection, Preventing the Spread of: Understanding Isolation Procedures
Infection, Your Baby in the NICU: Understanding
Infections, Central Line
Infective (Bacterial) Endocarditis (IE), When Your Child Has
Infective Endocarditis (IE): Discharge Instructions for Infective Endocarditis (Pediatric), Discharge Instructions for
2. American Academy of Family Physicians. (2012). Public Health Issues. Accessible online at: http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/clinical/publichealth.html
This website is the patient-education component of the official AAFP website. It consists of an extensive and very broad list of educational topics that includes both medical and more general health-related topics such as safe driving, firearms, and even the relative accessibility of healthcare in the U.S. The main topic list includes the following clickable topics:
Aging Driver, Americans in Motion — Healthy Interventions (AIM-HI), Ask and Act Tobacco Cessation Program, Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention in Family Medicine, Breastfeeding, Chronic Disease, Cultural Proficiency, Domestic Violence, Firearm Violence, Health Disparities, Infectious Diseases, Mental Health, Nutrition, Pandemic Flu
Prevention, Rural Health, Safety, Sports Medicine, Substance Abuse, and Tar Wars.
Clicking on the links reveals that some of the topics provide more information and information in different formats than others. For example, the Aging Driver topic lists the following clickable PDF files:
Tips for Safe Driving, How to Help the Older Driver, Getting by Without Driving, Am I a Safe Driver?, and Successful Aging Tips.
Other topics, such as Health Disparities, do not provide information directly but only link the user to external resources and other databases. This might discourage many users, especially those unfamiliar with online research hoping to find printable information with a minimum of further searching online. Meanwhile, another topic, Breastfeeding, does provide easily accessible information that includes illustrative diagrams along with the text-based information, as depicted below.
How should I hold my baby while breastfeeding?
You can hold your baby in a number of ways. Your baby shouldn’t have to turn his or her head or strain his or her neck to nurse.
In the cradle position, you put your baby’s head in the crook of your arm. Support your baby’s back and bottom with your arm and hand. Your baby will be lying sideways facing you. Your breast should be right in front of your baby’s face.
The football position consists of tucking your baby under your arm like a football with his or her head resting on your hand. Support your baby’s body with your forearm. This may be a good position if you’re recovering from a cesarean section or if your baby is very small.
This website is inconsistently helpful, depending on the topic of the search. It is nevertheless a good source of information in general but its usefulness to particular individuals likely depends on whether or not the topic of interest happens to be presented in a format best suited for that particular user. Perhaps the site could be improved by providing a more uniform experience that includes text, visual diagrams, and links to external databases in a navigable format designed to allow each user to locate the type of information delivery as well as the topic of interest.
