Searching for Health Information Online (Part 1)
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Joshua Schwimmer, MD, FACP, FASN
Also recently, a patient remarked that "On the Internet, you're always a few clicks away from certain death." He had searched online for his diagnosis and found a wealth of information, but he quickly realized that much of it was irrelevant, unduly alarming, or just plain wrong.
So I've been thinking a lot lately about health information on the Net. This series of posts will examine various ways that both patients and physicians can find reputable medical information online. To be clear: I'm not a medical librarian or a professional researcher, and this review will not be comprehensive, but it will touch upon some of my favorite methods of finding health information on the Internet.
Take kidney stones as an example. You're a patient, you've just spent most of the day in the emergency department in excruciating pain with your first kidney stone, and you come home and sit in front of your computer looking for more information. Where do you look?
A number of sites offer customized search engines which link to other websites carefully chosen to have reliable medical information. Healthline is one example of these specialized medical search engines and is certainly one of the best. (Full disclosure: I proudly blog here and consult for them.) Typing "kidney stones" in the search box on Healthline, our hypothetical patient receives a list of resources on kidney stones including an article on kidney stones reviewed by a physician, an entry on kidney stones in a medical encyclopedia, as well as information on kidney stones from outside sources including the Mayo Clinic.
In addition, glancing at the top of the page reveals "Search Ideas" -- these options include ways of broadening and refining the search, and also include a feature unique to Healthline called "HealthMaps."
A HealthMap, as I mentioned in a previous post on the value of mapping, is a visual representations of the epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of disease -- a "disease at a glance." Clicking on any of the components further refines the search to focus on that aspect of the disease. Clicking on "uric acid stones," for example, would automatically direct the patient to further information about that type of kidney stone.
More on searching for health information online in part 2.Labels: healthline, medical informatics
3 Comments:
At Thu Apr 19, 02:13:00 PM 2007,
John said…
Well-done medical literature can still be misleading.
For example, our current obsession with evidence-based medicine leads us to favor articles that use statistical arguments that makes claims about phenomena that happen to groups.
However, we experience life as individuals.
Sometimes our personal experience with a drug or a diagnostic test may not be the same as the group's average result.
It is a simple concept: indvidual experience with a disease or therapy or test may vary dramatically from group experiences documented by evidenced based medicine.
We should always keep this in mind to remind us that the best statistical literature (online or not) may not apply to our individual circumstances and we must remain ready to pathophysiologically reason through our problems.
I recommend an additional source of medical literature: a medical diary. Periodically keep track of your temperature, pulse, weight, any symptoms bothering you, your medical and surgical history, medications you take, allergies, etc.
A personal health diary may not be as fancy as statistically argued medical paper, but keeping track of your own medical story may help you figure out how to stay healthy.
At Fri Apr 20, 10:11:00 PM 2007,
Huck said…
In addition to the suggestions John makes, i think interindividual responses to medications are critical things to pay attention to. Two patients can be switched from carvediolol to toprol xl for formulary purposes. One's blood sugar won't budge, while the other has to increase their insulin. Different people respond to different NSAIDS with regard to analgesia. Myalgias vary from patient to patient with regard to statin therapies.
At Wed May 09, 07:49:00 AM 2007,
Kim said…
I often go to the internet at work for information to give to patients. Our discharge instructions don't always give as much info as I would like (diabetes, for example).
So now (1) I'll check out Healthline first and (2) I always tell the patient that their symptoms or reactions may not follow the "classic" path and to ask their doctor if they have any questions.
Healthline really has turned into a great resource...
Post a Comment
<< Home