Online legal resources for health care professionals

AORN Journal, March, 1999 by Susan E. Ziel

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.--Samuel Johnson(1)

Thanks to the "information superhighway" and the increasing use of telecommunications to obtain information and services, health care professionals and health care systems are shifting from vertical to "virtual" integration. The availability of meaningful information--anytime, anywhere--becomes central to the health care professional's ability to make informed decisions, to manage problems, and to forge new partnerships in an effective and efficient manner.

THE TOOLS

In 1977, the first personal computers went on sale to the general public.(2) Across the world, there is a huge untapped demand for personal computers. In North America, there will be nearly two people per personal computer within the next two years.(3) More importantly, computers provide millions of people worldwide with round-the-clock access to the Internet from their homes and offices. The Internet originally was a network of computers connecting researchers in government, academic, and scientific institutions during the 1960s.(4) Since it became accessible to the public, its popularity has increased tremendously: the number of Internet users is predicted to reach 700 million by the year 2000.

Those affiliated with universities and large corporations often have high-speed access to permanent, direct Internet connections. Others can easily use a modem to link their personal computers to a service provider's computer. These service providers, usually called "local host" computers, provide "dial up" access over local telephone lines to the World Wide Web. Major commercial online services (eg, America Online) also provide economical and easy access to the World Wide Web.

Thanks to the Internet and the many browsers, web pages, uniform resource locators (URLs), "hot links," e-mail, listservs, and other network and informational tools that are becoming increasingly available, today's health care professionals has access to the many online legal and regulatory resources that are available to them--anytime, anywhere.

THE RESOURCES

Since 1860, the US Government Printing Office (GPO) has provided information to Americans via printed and electronic publications of the Congress and the executive departments and establishments of the federal government. With the advent of the Internet, the GPO provides free online access to more than 70 databases of federal government publications. In addition to the Congressional Record and the Federal Register, the GPO recently has begun a pilot project that will allow online access to the entire Code of Federal Regulations very soon. The GPO's online information service, GPO Access, may be reached at www.access.gpo.gov.

There are also numerous "gateways" that provide online access to the many laws, regulations, and other reference materials of federal, state, and local governments. The federal agencies themselves provide direct access to their libraries of regulations, directives, and advisory opinions. Information concerning new US Food and Drug Administration regulations can be found at their web site, www.fda.gov; updates on Medicare providers sanctioned for health care fraud can be found at the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General home page, www.hhs.gov/progorg/oig; and the Health Care Financing Administration publishes proposed and final rules on issues such as the security of electronic health records and provides important Medicare links both for providers and consumers at www.hcfa.gov.

University law libraries, such as the St Louis University School of Law (lawlib.slu.edu/healthcenter), also provide important links to laws, agencies, journals, indexes, and search engines. Other gateways to federal, state, and local laws, regulations, funding sources, reference materials, and related "hot links" can be found at www.health.gov/statelocal, www.csg.org.and www.ncsl.org. Finally, legislative representatives can be located, and even sent email, using gateways such as Project Vote-Smart, www.votesmart.org, www.thomas.loc.gov, or the longstanding addresses for the US Senate, www.senate.gov, or the US House of Representatives, www.house.gov. The White House can also be contacted at www.whitehouse.gov.

Yahoo, a well-known search engine, offers an extensive database of web sites. Organized by subject categories, Yahoo offers an extensive listing of health-related sites addressing topics such as alternative medicine, end-of-life issues, law, medicine, news and media, nursing, procedures and therapies, and women's health, all of which can be found at www.yahoo.com/Health. Other gateways to visit include the National Institutes of Health Internet Grateful Med site at igm.nlm.nih.gov and the many federal and state government information resources available from Health Services Research at www.xnet.com.

Trade organizations, such as the American Hospital Association (www.aha.org), and professional organizations such as the American Nurses Association (www.nursingworld.org) and AORN (www.aorn.org) provide nurse professionals with online access to governmental affairs and legislative resources, and the many links that can take them directly to other related professional and governmental web sites.