Health care library available on-line
Help is just a click away at this Web site
More than 30,000 pages of health information from medical journals, magazines, newspapers, television, and radio news are available to hospital-based home care providers now via an on-line health information system. All you need is a computer, a modem, and access to the World Wide Web. (For information on how to get access to the Web, see editor's note at the end of this article.)
This new on-line resource, called America's HouseCall Network, was recently launched by the Orbis Broadcast Group, a producer of health television and video education programs based in Chicago, in conjunction with the American Academy of Family Physicians based in Washington, DC, the U.S. Pharmacopeia, and the National Health Council, whose members include the American Diabetes Association and the American Cancer Society.
"Consumers, health care professionals, and organizations can now exchange enormous amounts of information right at their fingertips," says Tim Bahr, the president of Orbis Broadcast Group's health care division.
The on-line system connects both home care and other health care professionals, as well as consumers, to on-line patient education programs, medical and health care information, on-line chat groups, daily medical news updates, and other information. In the future, the service also will provide an older adult resources center, a national provider directory, and an on-line pharmacy.
Get on-line information without a computer
For those without computers at home, the network is developing a touch-tone phone system, where callers can have access to certain areas of the same information available on-line.
The universal resource locator, or URL, for America's HouseCall Network is http://www. housecall.com.
[Editor's note: With a personal computer and an inexpensive modem, anyone can get access to the World Wide Web by signing up with an internet access provider, most of which charge between $9 and $20 per month for service. The two largest public internet access providers are America On-line and CompuServe. Installing the software and setting up an account with both of these services takes all of about 15 minutes. Call America On-line at (800) 827-6364 and CompuServe at (800) 848-8199 to order their free software.
For contacts to other internet access providers, read the June 11, 1996, issue of PC Magazine, which contains an article reviewing many national internet access providers. Also, most urban and suburban areas around the country have small, local internet access providers. Look in your local newspaper for their advertisements.] *
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