Problem knowledge couplers: can they extend our ability to use practice guidelines?

New information tools enable us to leave behind a world of medical practice in which providers of all sorts have been allowed to operate in the face of avoidable ignorance of relevant details from the medical literature as well as details about a given patient. Furthermore, the new tools can assist providers and patients alike in trying to process vast amounts of information in the course of everyday medical care. In the following article, the author discusses some of these new tools and how they can best be utilized.