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This issue of Information Research is a little later than intended, as a result of having to much to do and an attack of 'flu. However, we have an interesting issue, made up of three papers from the third International Symposium on Health Information Management Research, which was held in Sheffield last year. Some of the papers from that meeting have been published elsewhere, but these three deserved publication in our view and Information Research was clearly the appropriate vehicle.
The three papers are on rather different topics: the first, by M. P. Bradley & J. S. Briggs, of the Department of Information Science, University of Portsmouth, deals with the development of "An Internet Information System for GPs" concludes that "GPs want more information and that hospitals are broadly willing and
able to provide it". and that, "Internet technology could provide a cheap, manageable and
timely means of delivering the information to the GP's surgery." Next, J. Rolinson, of the Department of Information and Library Studies, Loughborough University, discusses "Health Information for the Teenage Years:What do they want to know?" and finds "a shift of emphasis of the adolescent’s need for information about medical conditions to information relating to body image and sexuality" as well as an "apparent lack of a systematic approach to health information education" and, finally, in a contribution from the Technical University, Berlin, A. Scheiber, R. Schneemann, & R. Wische report on "Assessment of Information Needs in Public Health in Germany: Results of a Nationwide Survey."
Our next issue should be available some time in March, and I would like to remind readers that we are now open to contributed papers, which will be refereed, and to suggestions for "guest" papers.
Information Research is designed, maintained and published by by Professor Tom Wilson. Design and editorial content © T.D. Wilson, 1996-98