LibGuides: Health Information Technology (HIT) & Health Information Management (HIM) Research Guide: Finding Articles

Why Bother with Library Databases?

Everson, B. (2012). Why? [photo]. CC. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/editor/6698208975/

1. Most of what you find on Google isn't scholarly.

2. When you do find something scholarly on Google, the site often asks you to pay for it.

3. You should never have to pay for content. That's what the library is for!

Full Text Linking

When an article isn't immediately available in full text, you will need to use the Find It link to try to link to full text. A video tutorial on using the Find It link can be viewed by clicking here. For more information on using the Find It link, please see the Full text linking help page.

Try these Databases

ABI/INFORM (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Medical coding is rooted in finances, so this is a top pick database! This is a business database that cross-searches numerous journals and magazines, including healthcare finance journals, where information relevant to HIT and HIM can be found.
STAT!Ref (Teton Data Systems) This link opens in a new window
This is NOT an article database, but is a database that cross-searches numerous medical reference books, including ICD-9-CM and Ingenix CPT with RVUs Data File. There is also a filter specifically in this database for Medical Codes.
Gale PowerSearch This link opens in a new window
This database is huge and cross-searches other extremely large databases such as Academic Onefile, General Onefile and Health & Wellness Resource Center. Information can be found on almost any topic and is coming from journals, magazines, books, newspapers, videos, and podcasts. If an article is not automatically in full text, use the Find It link to try to link out to full text.
CINAHL: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
This database, the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health, draws information from more than 3000 journals. In order to link to the full text of articles, use the Find It link.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
This is the largest biomedical database, and is cross-searching over 5000 journals that have been selected by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). With these journals being selected by NLM for inclusion in PubMed, you can consider the content to be scholarly. In order to link to the full text of articles: 1) Click into the article record 2) Use the Find It link.
Health and Wellness (Gale) This link opens in a new window
This database by default, searches medical encyclopedias and patient information resources, providing very nice succinct information on conditions and tests, but also searches journals, magazines, pamphlets, videos, newspapers.

What is a Database

What is a database?? A database is "A collection of information organized in such a way that a computer program can quickly select desired pieces of data. You can think of a database as an electronic filing system" (University of Toledo Computer Science and Engineering Glossary, nd.).

So, if you want to find information on a certain topic, you can do a keyword search to find the related "files", or in this case, most likely articles.

You likely use databases all of the time, such as Google, or online shopping websites, but don't even realize that a database is what you're using.

The Databases by Major option is a quick route to find databases for your research!