Health Sciences Online
Encyclopedia
Health Sciences Online is a non-profit online
ONLINE
ONLINE is a magazine for information systems first published in 1977. The publisher Online, Inc. was founded the year before. In May 2002, Information Today, Inc. acquired the assets of Online Inc....

 health information resource that launched in December 2008. The website hosts a virtual learning center providing weblinks to a collection of more than 50,000 courses, references, textbooks, guidelines, lectures, presentations, cases, articles, images and videos, available in 42 different languages. The content includes medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

, public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...

, nursing
Nursing
Nursing is a healthcare profession focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life from conception to death....

, pharmacy
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs...

, dentistry
Dentistry
Dentistry is the branch of medicine that is involved in the study, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases, disorders and conditions of the oral cavity, maxillofacial area and the adjacent and associated structures and their impact on the human body. Dentistry is widely considered...

, nutrition
Nutrition
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....

, kinesiology
Kinesiology
Kinesiology, also known as human kinetics is the scientific study of human movement. Kinesiology addresses physiological, mechanical, and psychological mechanisms. Applications of kinesiology to human health include: biomechanics and orthopedics, rehabilitation, such as physical and occupational...

 and other health sciences resources.

Aims

The website aims to provide quality educational resources to health care provider
Health care provider
A health care provider is an individual or an institution that provides preventive, curative, promotional or rehabilitative health care services in a systematic way to individuals, families or communities....

s in training and practice, especially in developing countries, thus bridging the digital divide
Digital divide
The Digital Divide refers to inequalities between individuals, households, business, and geographic areas at different socioeconomic levels in access to information and communication technologies and Internet connectivity and in the knowledge and skills needed to effectively use the information...

 (the global imbalance in access to information technology). The underlying aim is to support the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

' Millennium Development Goals
Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals are eight international development goals that all 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015...

 of public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...

, but it is also intended to be useful for providers in industrialized countries. The hope is to create revolutions in democratizing health sciences education.

The four pillars of HSO are being comprehensive, authoritative, ad-free and free. The next step for HSO is to become an online health sciences learning centre, providing credentials and distance education
Distance education
Distance education or distance learning is a field of education that focuses on teaching methods and technology with the aim of delivering teaching, often on an individual basis, to students who are not physically present in a traditional educational setting such as a classroom...

 degrees to help satisfy the great need for more and better-prepared health care professionals worldwide.

HSO is an official supporting organisation of HIFA2015 (Healthcare Information For All by 2015)
HIFA2015 (Healthcare Information For All by 2015)
Healthcare Information For All by 2015 is a global network of health professionals, producers of reference and learning materials, librarians, technologists, researchers, and policymakers...

.

History

HSO was conceived of by Founder and Executive Director Erica Frank
Erica Frank
Erica Frank is a United States-born physician, medical researcher and activist now working in Canada. Frank is Professor in the School of Population and Public Health, and the Department of Family Practice at the University of British Columbia...

, MD, MPH in 2001. A pilot of the site ran from 2006 until 2008, first only covering HIV/AIDS, and then moving on to include the entire site. The pilot ran in 11 countries in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 in order to assess the function, user interface, features, expectations, and needs of the users of HSO. The pilot was provided to health professionals at various levels of training and in practice.

Founding collaborators

Founding collaborators include the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

, the American College of Preventive Medicine
American College of Preventive Medicine
Founded in 1954, the American College of Preventive Medicine is a U.S.-based physician organization focused on practice, research, publication, and teaching of evidence-based preventive medicine...

, the University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...

, and the World Medical Association
World Medical Association
The World Medical Association is an international and independent confederation of free professional Medical Associations, therefore representing physicians worldwide...

.

Funding has been obtained from the Canadian
Government of Canada
The Government of Canada, formally Her Majesty's Government, is the system whereby the federation of Canada is administered by a common authority; in Canadian English, the term can mean either the collective set of institutions or specifically the Queen-in-Council...

 and British Columbian governments, the World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...

, NATO’s Science for Peace Program, the Annenberg Physician Training Program, the Ulrich and Ruth Frank Foundation for International Health, and others. There has also been a large cadre of volunteers who have worked on the site’s development.

Search engine

HSO uses the Velocity Search Platform provided by Vivisimo
Vivísimo
Vivisimo is a privately held enterprise search software company in Pittsburgh that develops and sells software products to improve search on the web and in enterprises...

 to search all of its collected resources. In addition, Google Translate
Google Translate
Google Translate is a free statistical machine translation service provided by Google Inc. to translate a section of text, document or webpage, into another language.The service was introduced in April 28, 2006 for the Arabic language...

 is used to provide results in 42 different languages.

Resources

HSO is a web portal
Web portal
A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....

 for searching health sciences resources that have been selected by a core team of volunteers, including health providers and scientists from different countries. The resources have been selected based on guidelines produced by several groups that help in assessing the quality of online health information.

The criteria used include:
  • the content should be relevant
  • the information is useful by itself as a teaching/learning tool (i.e., no Microsoft
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

     Powerpoint presentations without lecture notes or taped audio)
  • the website should be educational (i.e., no advertisements)
  • the source should be credible (i.e., a government, university, or specialty society)
  • the material should be current
  • the links on the site should be functional
  • the interface of the website should be user-friendly, and
  • the material should be free to access.


Currently, HSO indexes over 50,000 resources. These resources come from government organizations, universities, and specialty societies such as:
  • American College of Preventive Medicine
    American College of Preventive Medicine
    Founded in 1954, the American College of Preventive Medicine is a U.S.-based physician organization focused on practice, research, publication, and teaching of evidence-based preventive medicine...

  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
    Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta...

  • Columbia University
    Columbia University
    Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

  • Emory University
    Emory University
    Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...

  • Harvard University
    Harvard University
    Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

  • Johns Hopkins University
    Johns Hopkins University
    The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

  • Merck Manuals
  • National Health Service
    National Health Service
    The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...

  • National Institutes of Health
    National Institutes of Health
    The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...

  • National Library of Medicine
  • University of British Columbia
    University of British Columbia
    The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...

  • University of California, San Francisco
    University of California, San Francisco
    The University of California, San Francisco is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world...

  • University of Pennsylvania
    University of Pennsylvania
    The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

  • World Health Organization
    World Health Organization
    The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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