This appeared a few days ago:
Melbourne doctors take on Dr Google with new medical website Health&
- Brigid O’Connell
- Sunday Herald Sun
- June 28, 2015
IF you turn to Dr Google more often than your GP, the antidote may have been found.
A new website, curated by a board of prominent Melbourne doctors, aims to strip Dr Google of its stethoscope once and for all, with animations and verified information on more than 400 health conditions.
The website, being launched on Sunday by Melbourne start-up Health&, presents topics on the risks of medical tourism and why babies refuse to eat, to the causes of headaches and treating anaphylaxis.
Chair of the project’s advisory board Leon Piterman, Professor of General Practice at Monash University, said while patients had access to more health information than ever, it often lacked the context or personalisation to make it useful.
“The danger of Dr Google is the same danger as trying to self-diagnose or self-manage in any circumstance,” Prof Piterman said.
“People can get unnecessarily anxious about the symptoms they’ve got.
“What they need is validated and simply presented information, which can be supplemented with what the doctor says in relation to their specific symptoms.”
…..
The next stage of the website will require an annual subscription, where it becomes a quasi e-health record platform for storing health information and tracking lifestyle changes.
The full article is found here:
(Paywalled)
The bold paragraph really makes me anxious. Anyone who thinks such a pay-walled site of this sort would be a success either knows something I don’t know or doesn’t know what they don’t know. I would strongly suspect the latter. I really hope they get some expert e-Health advice before they spend too much money.
The only way you ever see portals of this making a difference is where they are linked to a really service provider that the patient is already engaged with and wants to use their services.
Here is the link to the site for you to browse:
David.
4 comments:
University academics in a protected environment, playing around with thought bubbles, and with little or no real world practical experience in the school of hard knocks; where business plans, pragmatic commercial realities and an organization's long term viability takes precedence over wishful thinking from inside the fish bowl.
To David and Anonymous, for these people the "light at the end of the tunnel is the express train"! David's comments have succinctly clarified the future scenario. Evidence is already in abundance that patients DO NOT NEED paywall sites to access RELEVANT AND APPROPRIATE health care management information.
1. Safran C, Sands DZ, Rind DM. Online medical records: a decade of experience. Methods Inf Med. 1999;38(4-5):308-12. Epub 2000/05/11.
2. Sands DZ. Help for physicians contemplating use of e-mail with patients. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2004;11(4):268-9. Epub 2004/07/16.
3. Sands DZ. ePatients: engaging patients in their own care. Medscape J Med. 2008;10(1):19. Epub 2008/03/08.
4. 1. Safran C, Sands DZ, Rind DM. Online medical records: a decade of experience. Methods Inf Med. 1999;38(4-5):308-12. Epub 2000/05/11.
2. Sands DZ. Help for physicians contemplating use of e-mail with patients. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2004;11(4):268-9. Epub 2004/07/16.
3. Sands DZ. ePatients: engaging patients in their own care. Medscape J Med. 2008;10(1):19. Epub 2008/03/08.
1. Safran C, Sands DZ, Rind DM. Online medical records: a decade of experience. Methods Inf Med. 1999;38(4-5):308-12. Epub 2000/05/11.
2. Sands DZ. Help for physicians contemplating use of e-mail with patients. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2004;11(4):268-9. Epub 2004/07/16.
3. Sands DZ. ePatients: engaging patients in their own care. Medscape J Med. 2008;10(1):19. Epub 2008/03/08.
4. Health Care Without the Doctor: How New Devices and Technologies Aid Clinicians and Consumers. Californian Health Care Foundation. M K Scott may 2009
If a patient portal is the answer - what was the question?
Doc Searls of Cluetrain Manifesto fame has been running a project at Harvard for some years known as Project VRM.
See http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/vrm/
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Main_Page
whats interesting is its about putting the tools in the hands of the client/customer /patient - and making them the point of integration (perhaps an alternative approach) and one of increasing merit.
what would it take for a health organisation to give to their patents a personal life management platform and for the patient to share their learnings and data with the people who help with their health/wellbeing?
Just had a quick look at the Health& website...
One of the headline articles describes Whooping Cough as a "Viral Illness". The last time I checked it was caused by a bacterium called "Bordatella pertussis" - whoever is composing the website might be using Dr Google for their information, and getting it wrong!
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