New Healthline Symptom Search Dramatically Improves One of the Most
Popular Online Health Research Activities
First "Search-driven"
Symptom Tool Gives Consumers the Ability to Research the Most
Comprehensive List of Symptoms and Possible Causes Currently Available
SAN FRANCISCO—February 13, 2007—Healthline Networks (www.healthline.com),
the leading provider of intelligent health information services, today
unveiled Symptom
Search, the first search-driven symptom exploration
tool. Symptom Search is the only Internet symptom tool to use a
semantic medical taxonomy – a relational database of over 1 million
diseases, symptoms and their synonyms – to analyze queries and produce
ranked results. The latest extension of Healthline's Medically Guided
Search™ platform, Symptom Search provides consumers with more relevant,
accurate, and faster results than competing symptom research products.
Symptom Search includes My Symptoms List™, an entirely new way for
consumers to create a personalized combination of symptoms to refine
their search results and narrow the list of possible causes. Healthline
then ranks Symptom Search results using proprietary search algorithms
that incorporate five years of current and historical Centers for
Disease Control (CDC) incidence data, input from multiple authoritative
medical reference libraries, and oversight from Healthline's team of
doctors and nurses. This data analysis, and thousands of hours of
clinician review, ensures that the SymptomRank™ search algorithms cover
the broadest range of conditions with the greatest accuracy.
"As a physician and heavy Internet user, I know that my patients are
increasingly using the Web to research symptoms – it's a great way, in
the privacy of your own home, to explore topics you think you may want
to talk to your doctor about," said Enoch Choi, M.D., a family practice
physician based in Palo Alto, Calif. "Healthline's Symptom Search makes
this task quicker and more relevant than ever before – and empowers
patients to have better doctor interactions."
Many existing consumer symptom research tools use static "interview"
formats that do not have the flexibility, breadth of information, or
relevance of a search-driven resource. As a result, current symptom
checkers offer a limited ability to combine symptoms and can only
research one-tenth the number of symptoms and one-fifth the number of
possible causes currently covered by Healthline's Symptom Search
product. Symptom Search is fully integrated into Healthline.com, giving
health information seekers the ability to research their condition
through authoritative, doctor-reviewed articles from the world's
foremost medical information publishers.
Other features and benefits of Symptom Search include:
Guided Research: The Symptom Search
"type-ahead" feature allows users to start with the general terms that
are frequently top of mind and suggests additional terms to help
quickly narrow their search for symptoms. For example, if a user begins
to type in "c-o-u-g-h," they will not only see "cough," but a
medically-reviewed list of 20 other types of coughs such as painful
cough, hacking cough, night cough, and so on, to guide and refine the
symptom search.
Search on Related Symptoms: The
Related Symptoms feature recognizes user inputs, like "fever" and
"muscle aches," and suggests symptoms that frequently occur in health
articles mapped to these symptoms – complete with definitions and
illustrations.
Comprehensiveness: Symptom Search
covers more than 3,500 symptoms and 900 diseases – more than ten times
the number of symptoms covered by WebMD, MayoClinic or any major
consumer symptom research tool.
Interactive, Search Driven Approach:
To offer the ability to explore possible causes and learn as they go,
Symptom Search allows consumers to enter any combination of symptoms
they choose. They can also quickly remove a symptom or clear their
Symptom List to start again. Other tools don't allow for the same
experimentation and exploration; typically, symptom combinations are
very limited, if they are available at all.
Quality/Confidence: In order to
design the best search algorithms and provide consumers with relevant,
high quality results, Healthline analyzed raw data from multiple years
of CDC surveys to rank the likelihood that a health condition would be
detected. This is unique among both clinical and consumer symptom
research resources.
"Symptom Search offers a much more interactive, useful way for
individuals to research health concerns, helping prepare them for
conversations with their physicians," said Paul Auerbach, M.D.,
clinical professor of Emergency Medicine at Stanford University and
chair of Healthline's Medical Advisory Board. "Through the unmatched
breadth of data to which it has access, Symptom Search provides
consumers with a comprehensive tool that helps them more quickly
navigate through the discovery process, whether they are dealing with a
potential medical emergency or simply trying to distinguish between
influenza and viral gastroenteritis."
About Healthline
Healthline Networks
offers
an innovative approach to meeting the needs of today's health
information seeker. The company's unique consumer healthcare taxonomy,
begun in 1999 in collaboration with 1,100 medical specialists, powers a
suite of intelligent health search, navigation and content services.
Combining advanced search technology with deep medical expertise,
Healthline and its business partners – a network of trusted destination
sites that include publishers, portals, search engines, employers and
health plans – help consumers navigate the complex world of healthcare
information, empowering them to make more confident, informed
decisions. Headquartered in San Francisco, Healthline is backed by
VantagePoint Venture Partners, Reed Elsevier Ventures, Mitsui &
Co., Ltd., and JHK Investments, LLC.
Company information:
Bill McGee
Senior Vice President, Marketing Services
415-281-3113
bill@healthline.com
Press Contact:
Colby Zintl
Healthline Networks
415-281-3110
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