Doctors and patients throughout the Island are now able to access reliable medical information from the Internet, thanks to a new web site set up by the Bermuda Hospitals Board.

The site has hundreds of links which will allow doctors to cut back on research time because it will direct them to authoritative information.

The aim is to ensure that neither doctors nor patients rely on web sites containing misleading or dangerous information.

The site has specific sections targeted at young people, women and women on a range of topics.

Rose Marie Scissons, the Board's health science librarian, said she hoped Island schools will soon begin to use the web site, www.bermudahospitals.bm/library, which was established last month.

Ms Scissons, who set up the web site for the nursing school at the prestigious McGill University in Montreal, has built up the Bermuda Hospitals web page since last October.

The site includes thousands of pages of medical research journals, pages with information to help doctors diagnose illnesses, and patient education brochures published by the King Edward VII and St. Brendan's Hospital staff.

Ms Scissons has applied for accreditation from Health on the Net, an organisation committed to ensuring only reliable medical advice is posted on the net.

"Our goal is to provide access to medical and research information to doctors Islandwide, not just at the hospital. The resources on this are available to any health care professional as well as consumers," she said.

The hospital is in the process of applying to MDConsult, an online information service where doctors can post medical queries if they are unsure about a diagnosis.

The eventual aim is to have computers on every hospital ward so doctors can instantly check up on research on illnesses from the web sites.

Richard Lau, the board's information services consultant, said: "Most sites are considered reputable sites, but there is always the question of how reputable some others are. This page saves doctors, health staff and consumers time because they know the sites included are reputable."

Dr. Cathryn Siddle, the continuing medical education director at KEMH, said: "The virtual library means that physicians now have 24 hour access to reliable medical data bases which are continually updated, whereas previously Bermuda physicians were relatively isolated from much of the medical academic literature."