In the quiet, green countryside outside Milan, one foggy morning, a few years back, I was driving along an isolated road. There Miss Murer, one of my patients, was eagerly awaiting my arrival. But long before I was anywhere near the remote property, I was already lost. Beside me, a roughly folded map was helpfully leading me away from familiar landmarks. Inhabitants kindly provided directions, but only confused what my sense of direction had left. This was a recurrent situation in my life, until 'Sat-navs' became available. These have a clear purpose: to give complete driving directions with the least possible risk of getting lost. In a few years they have become very popular. Innovative features are offered on top of essential information: travel time between destinations, real-time traffic updates, 3D views, to name a few. Now I'm not worried any more when a patient calls me asking for a visit and proudly announces the name of a neighbourhood I never heard of. I need something similar to avoid losing my direction when a doubt comes to my mind in clinical practice: information services I can trust, that provide relevant and reliable information when I'm searching for a correct diagnosis or treatment. However, there is a vital difference: being lost does not kill people, being lost in clinical practice may do.
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Moja et al. (2010) studied this question.
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