Thursday, February 24, 2011
Are patient-provider relationships at risk?
Friday, February 18, 2011
The biggest problem with internet health sites is the risk if miss leading information
Many people look to the internet to help them understand many things better including health care. The problem with looking on the internet for health care is that it can be very miss leading and force someone to believe that their problem is smaller or bigger then what it is. I mean honesty do you think doctors would spend the amount of time that it take to learn and understand the human body if something as simple as typing in your symptoms onto a online database will diagnose health care problems? Don’t get me wrong its perfect for learning more about a problem that a professional doctor diagnose you with. But the problem is people are using sites like WEB Md for first diagnoses.
WHY?
Many people use these types of sites because they do not have health insurance to go to the doctor. In 2006, the percentage of Americans without health insurance was 15.8%, or approximately 47 million uninsured people (http://sickothemovie.com/_media/SiCKO_sickofactoids.pdf).Most of these people don’t have no other way to a least try and figure out whats wrong with them. When I went to webmd and typed in stomach pain 171 different problems that I could have had come up. I think this is where the problem come in at. It may be easy for webmd to figure out what symptoms go along with a disease but it don’t know how to eliminate the diseases that are not your problem. Something professional doctors can do.
Monday, February 14, 2011
can health site case more harm than good
According to marketing Charts “More than 50% of youth ages 13-24 uses the internet for health information.” According to a recent survey by pew internet and American life project about 61% of adult Americans look online for health information. It help if the patients work in conjunction with his or her doctor. So that you’ll know that your on the same page. 20% People who search the internet for health information are called e-patients. Some of these e-patients have disabilities and chronic conditions who uses these site more than others. They actually meet up on the internet and social networking site and talk to medical experts as well as other patients. These e-patients don’t always share their all their finding with their doctor. When the end up with different results , because they’re nervous about challenging with what the doctor told them and what they found. To avoid this problem you could used internet sites that are directed for doctors so that you don’t find contradictory information.
I think that Some patients use the internet to become more informed of their health and or conditions. There has been many programs like My Health info and Google Health. Site like this help people save trips to the hospital, because they can track their blood pressure or cholesterol over time. The iphone or the iphone stethoscope has over 3,000 applications that deals with health. Where a patient can mange his or her medical history and Medications.
Can diagnosing over the internet cause stress?
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Who Do You Trust for Online Health Information?
Unfortunately, there are sites designed to market specific treatments and pharmaceuticals to its viewers. This can pose as a serious threat to your health if you attempt to self-diagnose at home. While it is our responsibility as individuals to take a proactive stance in terms of health care, we must take the time to identify and evaluate the validity of the source.
I am happy to mention that there are many scholarly sources such as MayoClinic and Centers for Disease Control which have links to other credible sites that may help you in your search.
What are your thoughts regarding the deliberate online marketing tactics used by some pharmaceutical companies to gain your business? Do you think the dialogue presented by MedicalFanatics has helped you to closely critique the information listed on websites?