Distribution of a Primary Care Office Information System

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this project is to take a successful Web site, which has been shown to aid primary care physicians (PCPs) in their daily patient care, and extend its use to other institutions. The Primary Care Office InSite (PCOI) site was developed by, and is widely used within, the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and its affiliated community practices. It gathers in a single easily-navigable site a wealth of practical, useful material, including patient care guidelines, therapy information, patient educational material, and workflow support, designed specifically to be used during routine patient care activity. One of the recommendations from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on improving the delivery of medical care was to utilize information technology in daily practice to increase the use of scientifically valid decision-making. It has been repeatedly shown that the information needs of PCPs are not being met, despite the wealth of information available on the Internet, because this information is not readily available and not optimally organized for use during daily patient care. We have developed a focused PCP-oriented Web site that has proven of practical value to PCPs in their daily patient care activities. The project described in this grant request is intended to demonstrate and evaluate whether this initiative can be shared with other institutions, especially with hospitals or organizations without the resources to develop such programs internally. As part of this project, the MGH Laboratory of Computer Science (LCS) will develop a partnership with the MGH Treadwell Library to capitalize on the synergy between the two departments. We also expect to use the grant to develop better understanding of the barriers and solutions to inter-institutional networks of information. Finally, we hope to determine whether the project can continue after the grant period, supported by user charges.