Resident utilization of information technology.

Objective: To determine if a simple educational intervention can increase resident physician literature search activity.
Design: Randomized controlled trial.
Setting: University hospital-based internal medicine training program.
Patients/participants: Forty-eight medical residents rotating on the general internal medicine service.
Interventions: One-hour didactic session, the use of well-built clinical question cards, and practical sessions in clinical question building.
Measurements and Main Results: Objective data from the library information system that included the number of log-ons to medline, searching volume, abstracts viewed, full-text articles viewed, and time spent searching. Median search activity as measured per person per week (control vs intervention): number of log-ons to medline (2.1 vs 4.4, P <.001); total number of search sets (24.0 vs 74.2, P <.001); abstracts viewed (5.8 vs 17.7, P=.001); articles viewed (1.0 vs 2.6, P=.005); and hours spent searching (0.8 vs 2.4, P <.001).
Conclusions: A simple educational intervention can markedly increase resident searching activity.