You used an electronic index, a guideline index, and a web search engine to retrieve information relevant to your clinical problem. Compare and contrast your results. Which resources were useful/ not useful for your information retrieval task, and why? Identify some alternative strategies for retrieving relevant information - would context relevant information retrieval be useful?
Electronic Index:
I did not like using PubMed. I just prefer the features of other resources, like CINAHL or the Cochrane Library.
Guideline Index:
The NCG was really fast, easy to use, and provided quite relevant information for a practioner. My only complaint was the presentation of guidelines. They were difficult to read with a bunch of bold text and red text littering the page. I think goofing around with NCG made me like UpToDate and the Cochrane Library even more.
Web Search Engine:
When in doubt I end up using google or google scholar. When I searched "acute low back pain" in google I got a lot more results and had to whittle things down. I found a lot more full text offerings on google scholar than I did with PubMed.
Alternative Strategies:
Search eJournals at Eccles.
I would love to see something simplified for a PDA or iPod Touch that would enable clinicians to access quality info at the bedside. Most of these resources are just to clumsy to quickly access the pertinent info you made need at the bedside. I think an easy to use clinical guideline application set up like epocrates would be amazing.
I'm not sure I really understand context relevant information retrieval. Anybody care to bail me out on this?
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Perhaps you can invent something!
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