Computers in Nursing’s Nurses Guide to the Internet Free

The many changes in health care practice over the past few years have had a dramatic effect on the way health professionals work. The emphasis on evidence‐based health care and clinical effectiveness has increased the need for up‐to‐date information from a variety of sources. The Internet is one source which is becoming more popular as more people get connected.

There are a number of Internet Guides on the market. This one is “the first handbook targeted specifically to nurses … to navigate through today’s best online nursing resources.” Its authors are editor‐in‐chief and editorial assistant for Computers in Nursing journal and so have a knowledge of the increasing use of information technology in nursing.

The book compares to a travel guide and the chapters have titles such as “Surfing is great … if you are on vacation” and “Basic travel tips.” It is split into three sections, the first is divided into chapters giving a broad overview of the Internet, basics of communication, getting connected, use of Internet language and e‐mail. Glossaries of terms used are included, as are handy hints and tips. It explains those terms and abbreviations like WWW, Telnet, Gopher, FTP and more, in a clear precise way. The final chapter of this first section of the book is a guide to using the Index of Resources.

The second section is the Index and the third is the Directory of Sites. It is recommended that both should be used together. The Index lists sites under different headings such as specialty areas, disease categories and other nursing/medical terminology like “critical pathways”. Cross references to other categories are provided so that no sources of information on a particular subject are missed. For example, The American Academy of Pain Management comes under the heading “Associations and Organisations” and also under the heading “Pain”. This is particularly useful for sites like “Bo Graham’s Home Page” where the name does not indicate the subject. This particular site is about Oncology and listed under the heading “Cancer”.

The Directory is an alphabetical listing, well set out with each site illustrated with an icon telling you whether the site is WWW, Telnet, Listserv, Usenet, FTP or Gopher. The address, a brief description, contact name and e‐mail address are also given.

At £19.95, it is more expensive than Denis Anthony’s Health on the Web which is aimed at health professionals in general rather than particularly at nurses, and to make life even easier, this book includes a disk containing an HTML file consisting of all the links from the book. This means listed sites can be accessed via this rather than typing in those long addresses. The inclusion of e‐mail addresses provides an excellent way of contacting other professionals to exchange information more quickly than by other means.

The authors claim the sites were chosen carefully as those they hope would be around for a while. Out of the 25 sites I tested all were accessible. The instructions for using both the book and the disk are clear and easy to understand. You can access a whole variety of resources from general Clinical Nursing sites through to specialty areas such as Mental Health, Diabetes, Emergency/critical care, midwifery and AIDS/HIV nursing. Educational resources are also included like school and colleges of nursing, libraries and sites concentrating on nursing informatics and research.

Although it concentrates on the USA and there are not many UK‐based sites mentioned, as a Registered Nurse I found plenty of relevant information and many links to other sites to try out, so it is a useful starting point and an effective reference book once you are using the Internet regularly.