The Iowa Health Book: creating, organizing and distributing a digital medical library of multimedia consumer health information on the Internet to improve rural health care by increasing rural patient access to information

Abstract

Patients need access to consumer health information in order to improve their health and well-being. Rural patients, by nature of their geographic location, have limited access to such information. A partnership has been formed between non-profit public health organizations, a health sciences library, a tertiary care medical center, a medical informatics laboratory, a state library system, and the citizens of Iowa. The purpose of the partnership is to create, organize and distribute a digital medical library of multimedia consumer health information on the Internet in order to improve rural patient access to consumer health information.