Applications of the World Wide Web to neurosurgical practice.

OBJECTIVE The objectives of the New York University (NYU) neurosurgery Web resource are the following: 1) to educate patients and families of patients who have neurosurgical problems, 2) to provide a forum for communication among neurosurgeons and other physicians, 3) to educate neurosurgeons, and 4) to provide neurosurgeons with resources for enhancing their practices. METHODS The NYU neurosurgery Web resource resides on a Sun SparcStation 20, running Solaris 1.0 and National Center for Supercomputing Applications httpd 1.0. It is aimed at a broad audience that includes the general public as well as practicing neurosurgeons and other physicians. Accordingly, general information regarding a variety of neurosurgical problems is presented in easy-to-understand language. Material intended specifically for neurosurgeons, such as case discussions, is designed to stimulate discussion and encourage outside submissions. Interaction with the NYU faculty and residents may be accomplished by using electronic mail, file transfer protocol, and direct Web postings. Media in development include java applets and real-time video over the Internet. The uniform resource locator for the NYU neurosurgery Web site is "http:/(/)mcns10.med.nyu.edu/". RESULTS The Web site has averaged 1800 accesses per month, and 5 to 10 electronic mail messages are received daily. Several patients for whom our faculty have held consultations over the Web have undergone surgery at NYU. The most popular areas of the Web site are the spinal surgery section and the brain tumors section. CONCLUSION The ability to capitalize on the World Wide Web as a facile user is becoming an increasingly important skill for the modern neurosurgeon. In addition, Web sites published by neurosurgeons offer opportunities for communication and consultation that have previously been impossible.

[1]  J. Weinstein,et al.  The virtual hospital. Providing multimedia decision support tools via the Internet. , 1995, Spine.

[2]  J P Kassirer,et al.  The next transformation in the delivery of health care. , 1995, The New England journal of medicine.

[3]  J Palca.  New journal will publish without paper. , 1991, Science.

[4]  H Duetsch.  The medical information superhighway. , 1995, The Journal of the Florida Medical Association.

[5]  S M Powsner,et al.  Navigating the Internet. , 1994, Bulletin of the Medical Library Association.

[6]  E. Fishman,et al.  The AJR of the future: electronic publication and distribution. , 1993, AJR. American journal of roentgenology.

[7]  S E Brenner.  World Wide Web and molecular biology , 1995, Science.

[8]  J E Backus,et al.  Service providers and users discover the Internet. , 1994, Bulletin of the Medical Library Association.

[9]  P D Clayton,et al.  Open architecture and integrated information at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. , 1992, M.D. computing : computers in medical practice.

[10]  S Rauch,et al.  Community hospitals and the Internet: lessons from pilot connections. , 1994, Bulletin of the Medical Library Association.

[11]  B L Humphreys,et al.  Computers in medicine. , 1995, JAMA.

[12]  Teleradiology for the Emergency Room , 1989, Applied radiology.

[13]  R. Mezrich,et al.  Radiology on the information superhighway. , 1995, Radiology.

[14]  K S Berbaum,et al.  Teleradiology for Consultation between Practitioners and Radiologists , 1992, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[15]  M P D'Alessandro,et al.  Distributing an electronic thoracic imaging teaching file using the Internet, Mosaic, and personal computers. , 1995, AJR. American journal of roentgenology.

[16]  S W Hassan,et al.  Academic networks: mosaic and world wide web , 1994, Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

[17]  M S Frank,et al.  An on-line digital Internet radiology teaching file server. , 1994, AJR. American journal of roentgenology.

[18]  K. McEnery.  The Internet, World-Wide Web, and Mosaic: an overview. , 1995, AJR. American journal of roentgenology.

[19]  M P D'Alessandro,et al.  The networked multimedia textbook: distributing radiology multimedia information across the Internet. , 1994, AJR. American journal of roentgenology.

[20]  M Corn,et al.  Connecting the health sciences community to the Internet: the NLM/NSF grant program. , 1994, Bulletin of the Medical Library Association.

[21]  J L Lancaster,et al.  Neuroscience on the net. , 1994, Science.

[22]  C E Kahn,et al.  CHORUS: a computer-based radiology handbook for international collaboration via the World Wide Web. , 1995, Radiographics : a review publication of the Radiological Society of North America, Inc.

[23]  N Marshall,et al.  Developing a family medicine presence on the Internet. , 1995, Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien.

[24]  R. Wootton,et al.  Intercontinental fetal surgical consultation with image transmission via Internet , 1993, The Lancet.

[25]  G Hripcsak,et al.  IAIMS and sharing. , 1994, International journal of bio-medical computing.

[26]  J R Kassirer,et al.  Journals in bits and bytes. Electronic medical journals. , 1992, The New England journal of medicine.

[27]  George D. Lundberg.  One Multimedia Medical World , 1995 .

[28]  L Widzinski,et al.  How hyper are we? A look at hypermedia management in academic health sciences libraries. , 1993, Bulletin of the Medical Library Association.

[29]  M J Becich,et al.  E-mail, the Internet, and information access technology in pathology. , 1994, Seminars in diagnostic pathology.

[30]  M C Peitsch,et al.  The Swiss-3DImage collection and PDB-Browser on the World-Wide Web. , 1995, Trends in biochemical sciences.

[31]  Neurolink: a neurosurgical wide-area computer network. , 1994, Neurosurgery.

[32]  J. Wallis,et al.  An Internet-based nuclear medicine teaching file. , 1995, Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine.

[33]  R. Harper.  World Wide Web resources for the biologist. , 1995, Trends in genetics : TIG.

[34]  M L Richardson,et al.  A World-Wide Web radiology teaching file server on the Internet. , 1995, AJR. American journal of roentgenology.

[35]  L G Yamamoto,et al.  Scanned emergency department to emergency department image transfer (SEE-IT): implementation and standardizing protocols to optimize tertiary referrals. , 1993, The American journal of emergency medicine.

[36]  J F Aiton.  The World-Wide Web: an interface between research and teaching in bioinformatics. , 1994, Disease markers.

[37]  Pankaj Sharma,et al.  Popular medical information on Internet , 1995, The Lancet.