Keith O'Brien

World wide web: Health informatics

A w o r k i n g de f i n i t i on of Hea l th I n for ma tics is. . . a comb ina t ion of computer science, information science and the health sciences to assist with the processing ol data, i n fo rmat ion and knowledge in order to support health care practice and the delivery of care. The following are a number ol health informatics sites that can be of assistance to nurses embarking on the journey of learning more about the informat ics technology and its appl icat ion to the provision of nursing care. Online journals are becoming a source of current information. OJNI (the onlinejournal of nursing informat ics) at http://milkman.cacpsu.edu/~dxmI2/OJNI .html aims to publ ish peer-reviewed, original, high quality scientific papers, review and practice-based articles, and databases related to nursing informatics. The journal has published five issues to date. Online registration is available so that you receive an email each time a new issue is out.

Web-site review: Rural Health

gfuee/pstmri J^wal factors website O n e of t h e i nc reas i ng c o n c e r n s in Australia today is the state of health and health care in rural Australia. To that end for this review a search was made of sites that were rural in nature and of use to nurses work ing in rural and remote areas. The review should also be of use to t hose in t e re s t ed in l ea rn ing more about rural health. T h e Austra l ian Rural H e a l t h Research Institute (ARHRI) home page can be found at hltp://www.nied.monash.edu.au/crli/arhri/ T h e first aim of ARI IR1 is to act as a clearing house for interested parties for i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t rural and r e m o t e h e a l t h r e sea rch , and on t r a i n i n g and educa t i on ini t ia t ives lor the rural and r e m o t e h e a l t h work fo rce the h o m e page is an excellent vehicle for this. It has l inks to its m e m b e r u n i v e r s i t y s i t e s , copies on line of the ARHRl-produced quarterly newsletter from February 1996 to the latest issue December 1997. At the lime ol review it had a link to RHiF97 the Rural and Remote I lealth Informatics Forum p a p e r s a n d m a n y o t h e r l inks including a Fasmanian guide lor Nurses caring for people with HIV/Aids. Opin ion: Well worth a look.

Web-site review

This regular feature will identify and describe interesting and informative sites on the World Wide Web, sites that are relevant to nursing and can help you, the nurse, professionally. It is intended to provide information about sites, evaluate their usefulness for nurses and, hopefully, help reduce search time for Web users.