MedlinePlus® Medical Encyclopedia: New Patient Information and Enhanced Navigation

I n November 2009, NLM® released a new version of the A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia on MedlinePlus. The encyclopedia now includes hundreds of new Patient Instruction pages in English (see Figure 1) and Spanish. These pages cover pre-operative information, discharge instructions, self-care instructions, and questions to ask your doctor. Users can find links to Patient Instructions and related MedlinePlus topics in the right side-bar of many encyclopedia articles.

Figure 1: Patient Instruction page.

Additionally, as of December 2009, users can access related A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia articles and Patient Instruction pages from nearly 700 of the 800 MedlinePlus topic pages. A new "Encyclopedia" box on the right-hand side of most English topic pages displays links to related encyclopedia content (see Figure 2). On the MedlinePlus en español topic pages, the encyclopedia links appear in the body of the page.

Figure 2: Topic Page with Encyclopedia box on the right.

By Sarena Burgess and Stephanie Dennis
Reference and Web Services Section

Burgess S, Dennis S. MedlinePlus® Medical Encyclopedia: New Patient Information and Enhanced Navigation. NLM Tech Bull. 2009 Nov-Dec;(371):e14.