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The Internet increasingly serves as a platform for the delivery of public health interventions. The efficacy of Internet interventions has been demonstrated across a wide range of conditions. Much more work remains, however, to enhance the potential for broad population dissemination of Internet interventions. In this article, we examine the effectiveness of Internet interventions, with particular attention to their dissemination potential. We discuss several considerations (characterizing reach rates, minimizing attrition, promoting Web site utilization, use of tailored messaging and social networking) that may improve the implementation of Internet interventions and their associated outcomes. We review factors that may influence the adoption of Internet interventions in a range of potential dissemination settings. Finally, we present several recommendations for future research that highlight the potential importance of better understanding intervention reach, developing consensus regarding Web site usage metrics, and more broadly integrating Web 2.0 functionality.

The AARP just met with the leadership of the Mayo Clinic, one of the most outstanding medical institutions in the country. They provide excellent care at a cost that is less than most other parts of the healthcare system - and with improved outcomes. We asked them about their secret to success. Mayo has an electronic medical record and all their patients have their information online. The physicians are on salary, so there's no incentive to order unnecessary tests or procedures, and Mayo has an ethic of patient-centered care, with a long history of attracting the best people and rewarding them. If Mayo can do it, why can't everyone else? The AARP believes that the potential is there for most communities to have excellent care - we must emulate the care delivery of institutions like the Mayo Clinic, and put in place payment and information systems that will coordinate care management better. It's a big job and will take some investment, but we have many opportunities to do a better job than we're doing today.

"Overwhelmingly, students enjoy CBL and think that it enhances their learning. The empirical data taken as a whole are inconclusive as to the effects on learning compared with other types of activity. Teachers enjoy CBL, partly because it engages, and is perceived to motivate, students. CBL seems to foster learning in small groups though whether this is the case delivery or the group learning effect is unclear."

Labyrinth is an experimental educational pathway authoring and delivery system being developed at the University of Edinburgh along with a number of other partners. Users are presented with set or randomly selected choices as they move through a Labyrinth, each of which has a consequence for the user. Examples include virtual patients, quizzes, games and tutorials.

The eHealth International Journal provides a peer-reviewed vehicle for timely publication of scientific research on the application of information technology in medicine, medical care delivery, and public health.

Glenn Regehr and Maria Mylopoulos Many of the assumptions about the "adult, self-directed learner" that form the basis of the current model of formal continuing education delivery are largely unsupported by the literature. Yet most practitioners maintain

Based on these findings, streaming video technology seems to be a viable tool to complement in-class delivery methods, to accommodate the needs of medical students, and to provide options for meeting the challenges of delivering the undergraduate medical curriculum.