Abstract
The Internet is rapidly evolving from a resource used primarily by the research community to a true global information network offering a wide range of databases and services. This evolution presents many opportunities for improved access to biomedical information, but Internet-based resources have often been difficult for the non-expert to develop and use. The World Wide Web (WWW) supports an inexpensive, easy-to-use, cross-platform, graphic interface to the Internet that may radically alter the way we retrieve and disseminate medical data. This paper summarizes the Internet and hypertext origins of the WWW, reviews WWW-specific technologies, and describes current and future applications of this technology in medicine and medical informatics. The paper also includes an appendix of useful biomedical WWW servers.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (1.6 MB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Cimino J. J., Socratous S. A., Clayton P. D. Internet as clinical information system: application development using the World Wide Web. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 1995 Sep-Oct;2(5):273–284. doi: 10.1136/jamia.1995.96073829. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- D'Alessandro M. P., Galvin J. R., Erkonen W. E., Lacey D. L., Curry D. S., Holtum E. A., Santer D. M. The virtual hospital: creating and organizing a ubiquitous health sciences organization on the Internet. Proc Annu Symp Comput Appl Med Care. 1994:1061–1061. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Glowniak J. V., Bushway M. K. Computer networks as a medical resource. Accessing and using the Internet. JAMA. 1994 Jun 22;271(24):1934–1939. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Glowniak J. V. Medical resources on the Internet. Ann Intern Med. 1995 Jul 15;123(2):123–131. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-123-2-199507150-00008. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Haynes R. B., McKibbon K. A. Grateful Med. MD Comput. 1987 Sep-Oct;4(5):47-9, 57. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kingsland L. C., 3rd, Harbourt A. M., Syed E. J., Schuyler P. L. Coach: applying UMLS knowledge sources in an expert searcher environment. Bull Med Libr Assoc. 1993 Apr;81(2):178–183. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Lowe H. J., Buchanan B. G., Cooper G. F., Vries J. K. Building a medical multimedia database system to integrate clinical information: an application of high-performance computing and communications technology. Bull Med Libr Assoc. 1995 Jan;83(1):57–64. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- McKinney W. P., Wagner J. M., Bunton G., Kirk L. M. A guide to Mosaic and the World Wide Web for physicians. MD Comput. 1995 Mar-Apr;12(2):109-14, 141. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Perry D. J., Hubbard S. M., Young R. J. PDQ: a new source of information on cancer therapy. Eur J Cancer Clin Oncol. 1989 Dec;25(12):1907–1908. doi: 10.1016/0277-5379(89)90371-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Zelingher J. Exploring the Internet. MD Comput. 1995 Mar-Apr;12(2):100-8, 144. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]