HealthInsite Newsletter - Special Edition
 In this Issue Volume 2 Issue 4
HealthInsite Gets a Make-over
As promised we are delighted to announce the launch of the newly renovated HealthInsite !
Like most renovations, it took a little longer than expected but finally came together with the help of friends and family.
In our case, friends and family included:
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You - our users who provided us with lots of constructive feedback
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Our Information Partners who continue to support us with great information
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Our Editorial Board with lots of great ideas
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Our wonderful Technical Team with their 'behind the scenes' magic
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And, of course, the whole team here, who spend their working lives immersed in HealthInsite every day.
In this special edition of the Newsletter we'll introduce you to some of the new features and let you know what we've done with some of your old favourites.
As always, please feel free to also let us know if you have any problems or if you have any suggestions for future developments of the site by sending an email to healthinsite.feedback@health.gov.au
New Home Page
The most obvious change is the new home page. We've tried to make much better use of the available space and we've included several new features. We haven't removed anything from the database, just rearranged it so that it's easier to find and added quite a few additional topic pages.
We've combined the previous five categories (which used to be in the centre of the screen) into three broad categories now located in the blue navigation block on the left side of every HealthInsite page. These categories arrange resources and topic pages into logical groupings to give you fast and easy access to all parts of HealthInsite from any page. The categories are:
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Conditions and Diseases which includes topics such as asthma, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, and depression.
Health and Wellbeing which includes topics such as fitness, nutrition, drugs, preventing suicide, health insurance, women's health, and living with a disability.
- Life Stages and Events which includes topics such as menopause, pregnancy, ageing, and going into hospital.
We've also added a new 'Health Services' category which links to State/Territory Health Services and other services.
The yellow navigation block on the right hand side is also new. These topics include information of an educational nature which can help you to understand and find your way through health information and the health care system. The topics listed on the home page will change from time to time, but the full range of topics will always be available from A - Z Health Topics and will appear in relevant searches.
For example, if you are concerned about a complex medical diagnosis or are pregnant for the first time, you may have trouble remembering all of the things that concern you when you actually sit down with your health professional. Try clicking on Questions to Ask Your Health Professional, and you'll find a number of lists of useful questions for your next consultation. This was always available on HealthInsite, but not so easy to find.
We think that the new version will be easier to use. But what do you think? You can let us know by sending an email to healthinsite.feedback@health.gov.au.
New Category - Health Services
In addition to the major categories that you're already familiar with, we've added an additional category of Health Services. This category helps you to find information about the health services available in your state or territory. Just click on your state or territory on the map and you will find a link to the relevant services databases managed by the state/territory health department.
You will also find a list of services information available from the HealthInsite database. Of course this won't be a complete list of all services available because HealthInsite only links to information about services provided by our information partner organisations.
To help you find things that may not be included we've also provided you with a link to the Yellow Pages.
Printer Friendly Pages
While HealthInsite was designed for use 'on-line' and is updated constantly throughout the day, it's often useful to be able to print out pages to pass on to someone else or to keep for future reference. When you printed a page from the old version the side navigation bar was printed along with the content of the page.
HealthInsite now gives you a 'printer friendly' option. This will allow you to print the content of the page without the navigation blocks that appear on the left and right hand sides of your screen. You just need to click on the text link 'Printer Friendly Page', which appears just above the list of resources and or at the top of the web-based version of the Newsletter. A new page will open showing the content of the page without the side navigation blocks.
We hope you find this useful.
Your Feedback - Changing the Font Size
Even though the new look HealthInsite only went live on Monday 25th October, we've already received some terrific feedback from our users. Thanks to all those who have dropped us a line.
One of our users wrote to let us know that the size of the text on the site is too small and difficult for some people to read.
The way we've designed the site means that changing the size of the text to suit your particular needs is very easy.
Across the top of your screen you will see a toolbar. Click on 'View' and go down to 'Text Size'. From there you can enlarge or reduce the size of the text by clicking on one of the options provided. The new design will work on any of the text sizes and it allows each user to make the best choice for their particular needs.
Changes Behind the Scenes
Some of the changes are much less obvious. For example, most of the web pages on the Internet (including the old HealthInsite ) are made up of lots of separate images that come together as a single page on your computer screen. The number and size of the images affects how fast the web page is downloaded. The new design is constructed differently so that it uses few images. This means that it should download much quicker than before.
If you have a broadband connection to the Internet you may not notice much difference but those who have a dial-up connection to the Internet may notice that things happen much faster. Of course this means that searches will be faster and it will take even less time than before to get through HealthInsite to the information you need on our information partner sites.
That's it for now. Thanks again for all your support.
Over the next couple of Newsletters I'll tell you about a few of the other improvements we've made. Please feel free to let us know what you think - we would love to hear from you.
from all of us at HealthInsite .
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