Australian General Practitioners' Use of Health Information

Over the past 30 years the health framework in which doctors and other healthcare professionals practise has changed relatively little in comparison with the enormous changes seen in transport, manufacturing, and telecommunications (Yellowlees & Brooks, 1999). In Australia, the health system, like others in developed countries worldwide, is deteriorating quickly. Productivity commission reports, parliamentary inquiries, and numerous academic papers describe the current waste and lack of focus on outcomes in our health system (Weyden & Armstrong, 2004), at a time when communities and dedicated health professionals are screaming for the resources to provide acceptable care for their communities (Jackson, 2005). Portals are seen as feasible tools capable of influencing the outdated health framework to reflect the changed environment (Carbone & Burgess, 2006; Glenton, Paulsen, & Oxman, 2005; Martin & Sturmberg, 2005). In Australia, the technologies behind portals, and potential for health portals specifically, seem to be well understood and represented in the available literature (Sellitto & Burgess, 2005; Tatnall 2005; Tatnall, Burgess, & Singh 2004) as it is around the globe (Eysenbach, 2000; Kim, Thomas, Deering, & Maxfield, 1999; Milicevic & Cullen, 2005). However, less clear are the perceived needs of Australian general practitioners (GPs) and the issues that prevent or encourage the utilisation of these information system technologies. Not just the personal, but also the infrastructure and content needs of general practice and its patients. However, before portal development and design can begin, it is important to find out what the needs are of general practitioners. This article aims at evaluating the available literature on the most basic online information needs of general practitioners in Australia. In particular, three online issues that appear to be of most importance to GPs: Internet access and use, the content and perceptions of what GPs need, and their relationship with the Internet informed patient. It is not the intention of this article to provide a generic model to deals with the technical issues. bAcKground