Quality of Health-Medical Information on the Internet
January 16, 2009 – 14:14 by Dani Iswara. Words count: 299.Last updated: Monday, April 20, 2009 at 0:41.
Consumer can share their health and medical information on the Internet easily. The global nature of the web-medicine 2.0. Users are a content publishers. Who are the judges of its quality?
The battle of Medical Googler vs Medical Blogger (in Bahasa Indonesia; try Google Translator) is still on.
Bertalan Mesko has the same story on his blog. See on Quality of Medical Information Online: A Twitter Discussion:
…I mentioned many great medical blogs are not accredited by HONcode, the Health On The Net Foundation, which is…
In the visitor’s side, there are so many guidelines for the health/medical information seekers. For example, HealthInsite.gov.au — an Australian Government initiative, funded by the Department of Health and Ageing has this guide, How to Assess Health Information Online (in a short):
…
The following questions may help you to decide if health information on the Internet is of good quality:
- Why was it created (purpose)?
- Who is responsible for the information (authority)?
- Is the subject coverage complete and in-depth?
- Is the information up-to-date?
And HONcode does in the similar way. Did you know the New HONcode Logo? 
See also Criteria for Evaluating the Quality of Health Information on the Internet by Library of the Health Sciences – Urbana, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Based on their version, the criteria is divided into: content and design:
- Content
- Accuracy/validity
- Authority
- Currency
- Disclaimer
- Intended Audience
- Links
- Purpose of the site
- Uniqueness
- Design
- Ease of use
- Attractiveness
Do you know where is the Indonesian guidelines?
Who are the authors of medical websites/blogs?
Did you always read their profiles?
HONcode is one of the accreditation sertificate. There is Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics of course.
In my opinion, the most important is how medical web/blog authors educate their visitors to realize the quality of health/medical information on the Internet world. Try build and use the web with those criterias in your mind.
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