Helping patients decipher options

Beginning next spring, a consortium of 20 scientific publishers, three health societies, and four other groups representing publishers and libraries will debut a free online service offering new medical findings to consumers. The goal of patientINFORM (http://www.patientinform.org/) is to make technical research easier for the public to understand and to “empower patients to have a more productive dialogue with their physicians,” says Harmon J.