Bibliographic Citations for Telemedicine
About the Bibliographic Database
The TIE's Bibliographic database is a comprehensive database of citations to the
literature of telemedicine (journal articles, books, book chapters, conference proceedings, etc. ).
A 'citation' includes the following information: author, title, source (journal article or book
title, etc.), volume/issue #, date, and page numbers. The citation may also include an abstract
of the article. Full text of the articles described in the citations is available only for
citations which include an orange Document Delivery
.
We charge a fee for those articles to cover copyright, labor and copying costs.
Articles may also be available through your local public or medical library. Articles which are
also indexed in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) databases include the UI (unique identifier),
and the PMID (PubMed identifier) for PubMed articles as part of the citation, which is helpful for
obtaining the article on interlibrary loan through your local library.
Basic search strategy
If you search on the word 'telemedicine' you will retrieve over 5,000 articles which
include that word in the title or abstract. Remember that all citations in the database relate
to telemedicine. You can search on the aspect of telemedicine you are interested in without
including the word 'telemedicine' as a search term. For instance, if you are looking for
citations to articles on the use of satellites in telemedicine, you can just search on the
word 'satellite'. Many articles about telemedicine may not even include that term, and may
use other words instead to describe the same concept, such as 'telehealth', 'teledermatology',
'telepsychiatry', etc. If you want to find information on teledermatology or telepsychiatry,
use those specific terms instead of the more general 'telemedicine'.
Search terms
Your search results will be more successful if you use fewer search terms.
For instance, using terms such as 'telepsychiatry practice rural' will not be as successful as
'telepsychiatry rural', since there are likely few articles which include the word 'practice'
with rural telepsychiatry. Start with a broader concept, check the search results box to see
how many you retrieve, and then add or remove terms to narrow the search if necessary. Several
terms will provide you with a list of Related Terms to include in your search.
- Multiple search terms
- You may enter any number of search terms. You do not have to separate them with a comma
or +, however it will still perform the search if you do. All terms entered will
be 'anded' by default.
- Wildcard
- You may also truncate terms by using
the stem of the word and a * (star). For instance, entering derm* will retrieve dermatology,
dermatologist, dermatological, etc. This feature ensures you will find all forms of the word,
but may return more citations than you want.
- Boolean search
- This search engine does not support Boolean searching - all terms entered will
be 'anded' by default. If you wish to use 'not' or 'or' you will be provided with
a link to the Full Text Search option when you enter a Boolean search phrase
- Advanced search
- The Advanced Search features interfaces to search for articles by a particular
author, articles from a particular journal, to
view new additions to the database, or to perform a full text search.
- Browse database
- Use the Browse feature to drill down through lists of authors by last names,
all book titles, cities, editors, journals, languages other than English, publishers,
series and citation types.
Search limits
If you would like to restrict or narrow your search, there are several limits.
- Publication types
- Restricts looking for your search terms in citations from certain types of publications, such as books,
reports, newspaper articles, etc. 'Journal articles' or 'All types' typically return the best
the best results.
- Date range
- Restricts looking for your search terms in citations published on the date you enter.
- Language
- Restricts looking for your search terms in citations written in langauge you select.
- TIE Data entry date
- Restricts looking for your search terms in citations based on the date they were added to the
Bibliographic database. Citations are usually added daily to this database.
- Peer reviewed
- Restricts looking for your search terms in citations from research-based academic periodicals.
Please note that the peer reviewed classification is by journal, (not individual article) so it's
possible to pull up a [letter] or [abstract] from a conference, if it is from a peer-reviewed
journal.
- Abstracts
- Restricts looking for your search terms in citations that contain an abstract (a short description of the article).
- Document delivery
- Restricts looking for your search terms in citations whose articles are available through the TIE's
document delivery service.
- Search terms (expand)
- Expands looking for your search terms to citations that at least one of the multiple terms you enter.
If you add more than one search term, by default, your search results will bring up only
citations that match ALL those terms. If you also want citations that may have one or
two of your terms, click this box on the search page.
Search results
Search results are sorted by relevancy based on the number of search terms matched only
in the citation title and abstract. For example, a citation with the search term once in the
title and twice in the abstract will be listed before a citation with the search term appearing
in the title only. This is why your results may include an older citation first. If you wish
to restrict to more recent citations only, use the date restriction drop-down box when you
enter your search.
Results controls & options
- Search history
- The search results box provides you with a search history, and (if you enter multiple
search terms) tells you how many citations matched each of your search terms.
- Related search terms
- A link to related search terms will also appear (if available for your search term) at
the bottom of the results page, which you can use to broaden your search.
- Didn't find what you were looking for
- If you are not retrieving satisfactory results, the search results box should give
you some idea of which of your terms are not indexed and potentially offer alternatives.
Display options
There are a number of options for displaying/sorting your search results as noted in the
Display Directions box. Once you have a search you would like to display or print, you
can choose to include abstracts or not, or arrange alphabetically by author or title.
(Arranging in date order may be done from the LIMITS section where you entered your search).
- Results format
- Your search results list will first show title, date of article, author and the document
delivery icon if the article is available through Document Delivery.
- View citations
- You can then either click on an individual citation to see all information for
that article, check boxes on several citations and then click on 'Show Citations',
or if you want to see all of the citations you can click on 'Show All'. The full
citation(s) will appear, with abstract if you have chosen that option and if
one is included. It will also tell you the Publication Type, and provide
the UI or PMID number which indicates a PubMed citation, and the TIE entry number.
- Print view
- Retrieve your list of citations in basic manuscript format, with no formatting,
abstracts or ID numbers. This would be useful for inclusion in personal bibliographies
or manuscripts. The citations are in standard bibliographic format.
