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Grateful Med: Direct Access to MEDLINE for Health Professionals with Personal Computers
Josephine L Dorsch1, John G Faughnan2, Betsy L Humphreys3
1Professor Emerita, University of Illinois - Chicago.
Grateful Med, a physician-friendly interface to MEDLINE, was developed to improve healthcare information access. Its introduction in the pre-Internet era expanded health professionals' use of medical databases.
Area of Science:
- Medical Informatics
- Health Information Systems
- Biomedical Information Science
Background:
- Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. aimed to enhance the utility of U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) information services for direct medical care.
- The 1980s saw the emergence of end-user systems for accessing MEDLINE, a crucial biomedical literature database.
Purpose of the Study:
- To document the development and dissemination of Grateful Med, an NLM-developed interface for MEDLINE.
- To highlight the role of Director Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. in making NLM services more accessible to health professionals.
- To explore the challenges and impact of introducing user-friendly search interfaces in a pre-Internet environment.
Main Methods:
- Recounting the rapid, iterative development process of the Grateful Med software.
- Describing the campaign to promote Grateful Med adoption among health professionals.
- Analyzing the period from 1986 to 1996, focusing on expanding MEDLINE usage by healthcare providers.
Main Results:
- Grateful Med, an inexpensive PC search interface, was launched in early 1986.
- The interface facilitated health professionals' access to MEDLINE, enhancing its use in clinical settings.
- Significant efforts were made to introduce and support users of this new system.
Conclusions:
- Grateful Med's development and promotion successfully expanded health professionals' access to and utilization of MEDLINE.
- The project underscored the importance of user-friendly interfaces in bridging information gaps in healthcare.
- The initiative had lasting effects on the integration of biomedical information into medical practice during a transformative decade.
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