Finding Medical Information on the Internet October 14, 2000 Finding Medical Information on the Internet Ralph Becker

Finding Medical Information on the Internet October 14, 2000 Introduction Reliable Medical Information I’m a JDMS dad Work at Lucent Technologies Author, Julia’s JDMS Diary web page / frequent poster on the MAA BB Used properly, the internet gives everyone quick & easy access to medical info. < 5 years ago, information like this was only available from medical libraries. Most doctors appreciate well-informed patients. This talk will NOT: - teach how to access the internet or use internet tools, like a web browser - be able to answer If a particular site is good or bad. You need to decide this for yourself! - Should not be considered medical advice This talk WILL: - Help you FIND information on the internet - Help you decide if it’s reliable or not - Give you some online resources to start with These slides will be available as a web page, URL at the end October 14, 2000 Finding Medical Information on the Internet

Finding Medical Information on the Internet October 14, 2000 Topics of Discussion What’s Reliable? Searching Medical Sites Drugs Treatments Medical Products How do we know when to trust information we find? Search Engines, Indexes, and Medical sites October 14, 2000 Finding Medical Information on the Internet

Finding Medical Information on the Internet October 14, 2000 What’s Reliable? Consider the source Is the information verifiable? How does the information fit with your own experience? Source: is the site well established? Is it easy to contact the site owner? Is it backed by a government or academic organization? (good) Is it backed by a medical or drug company? (bad) Is the site up-to-date? Is the site is good financial shape? Can you find similar information on other sites? - several sites with similar information is generally good verification - be careful of IDENTICAL information - sites sometimes share information or articles; this does not increase confidence in them. E.g., http://www.readersdigesthealth.com/content/dmk/dmk_article_5461774 http://my.webmd.com/content/dmk/dmk_article_5461774 http://content.health.msn.com/content/dmk/dmk_article_5461774 You’ve all heard this before - “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”. This is good advice. A true “miracle” treatment would be heralded by your doctor and the mainstream press. Not all advice works for everyone! Question everything, and don’t make any changes without consulting your doctor. October 14, 2000 Finding Medical Information on the Internet

Finding Medical Information on the Internet October 14, 2000 Searching Search Engines Indexes Links pages Search Engines map the web - they use programs that visit sites, either submitted or linked to, and stores their contents in a database. We can then search the databases through a web page interface. E.g., Google, Alta Vista, Lycos, HotBot. Meta-Search engines search multiple search engines at the same time. They take your search request and send it to a bunch of search engines and return all the results together. E.g., Dogpile, AllTheWeb, MetaCrawler. Indexes (indices) are categorized lists of links to other sites. These don’t list as many sites as Search Engines, but return a high quality selection of links. The best known of these is Yahoo!, others include dmoz.org. LookSmart, and About.com. October 14, 2000 Finding Medical Information on the Internet

Finding Medical Information on the Internet October 14, 2000 Medical Sites Cover only health topics Often too general for rare diseases Usually reliable Beware of buying Sites include; WebMD, DrKoop.com, MedScape, Virtual Hospital Do not be deterred if a site is targeted to doctors and medical professionals. The information may be more technical, but can still be valuable. Often, these sites have only the most basic information on rare diseases like Myositis. The can be a valuable source of information about drugs, medical news, and other more general topics. Buying from these sites can be risky - they make money for selling certain brands or items, so you may not have access to better, cheaper competitors. These sites make money from advertising. If you like and use a site, do click on an ad if it interests you. October 14, 2000 Finding Medical Information on the Internet

Finding Medical Information on the Internet Links All links are available at: http://www.ralphb.net/MAA/links.html Some good links: http://www.intelihealth.com/ - General health site http://www.medscape.com/ - Medical news and reference http://www.rxlist.com/ - Drug reference site http://www.ncrhi.org/ - National Council for Reliable Health Information October 14, 2000 Finding Medical Information on the Internet

Finding Medical Information on the Internet Things to Remember The Internet is a valuable and convenient tool, BUT... Ensure your source is reliable Bookmark useful sites October 14, 2000 Finding Medical Information on the Internet

Finding Medical Information on the Internet Resources This presentation is available as a web site: http://www.ralphb.net/MAA/ Email me with questions: ralphb@whoever.com October 14, 2000 Finding Medical Information on the Internet