The National Library of Medicine, the world’s largest medical library and part of the National Institutes of Health, has formally launched MedlinePlus Connect. The free service allows health organizations and health information technology providers to link patient portals and electronic health record systems to MedlinePlus.gov,

MedlinePlus brings together information from NIH, other federal agencies, and reputable health information providers. It covers a wide range of health conditions and wellness issues, and includes key resources to inform patients about their health.

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Patients using portals or EHRs that have implemented MedlinePlus Connect can access easy-to-understand health information on MedlinePlus that is directly related to their diagnoses, medications, and lab tests.

“MedlinePlus Connect is the latest result of NLM’s long standing commitment to using technology and standards to bring high quality information to patients and clinicians when and where they need it,” said NLM Director Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD.

To use MedlinePlus Connect, an organization should contact their EHR vendor or work with their in-house technical staff to follow the instructions in the technical documentation.

Full details, including an online demonstration, are available at http://medlineplus.gov/connect. MedlinePlus Connect accepts the coding standards already in the organization’s system, such as ICD-9-CM, SNOMED CT CORE Problem List Subset, RxNorm, NDC, and LOINC. MedlinePlus Connect needs to be set up once. NLM regularly maintains the vocabulary mappings and topic links.

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Since MedlinePlus Connect helps EHRs identify patient-specific education resources, MedlinePlus Connect may assist eligible healthcare providers in meeting one of the criteria for meaningful use of certified EHR technology. Healthcare providers must meet a number of criteria to demonstrate meaningful use in order to qualify for Medicare or Medicaid EHR incentive payments under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“One of our core principles is that meaningful use of EHRs should help patients get access to information that is meaningful and useful to them,” said Farzad Mostashari, MD., national coordinator for health IT. “This meaningful use objective helps patients obtain information tailored to their health situation, and this free service helps providers do this efficiently.”

The Institute for Family Health, a federally qualified health center network that operates 26 practices in New York State, first piloted MedlinePlus Connect in 2010. In 2002, the Institute became the first health center network in New York to have an EHR and practice management system. The initial MedlinePlus Connect pilot, supported by the Institute’s patient health information portal, was quickly followed by pilots at other healthcare organizations using a variety of EHR and patient portal systems.

MedlinePlus Connect can now serve any heath IT system that uses the HL7 Infobutton Standard.

The  project, which harnesses technology to improve the public’s health, received the coveted HHSinnovates Award from Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on March 31, 2011.

MedlinePlus Connect Quick Facts

• MedlinePlus Connect is free and does not require registration.
• You can link your certified EHR to MedlinePlus Connect to help you achieve one of the 10 menu set criteria for Meaningful Use of certified EHR technology.
• MedlinePlus Connect does not have to be used exclusively to link to patient education information. Many EHR systems can be configured to link to more than one source of consumer health information.
• You only need to implement MedlinePlus Connect once for the whole system; individual links do not need to be created.
• MedlinePlus Connect is not a replacement for MedlinePlus. It is a value-added service to bring MedlinePlus content to EHR