Health the Internet and the Future
Goals: to become familiar with issues pertaining to internet health sites and the use or abuse of information provided there.
Overview
What is the Internet ?
Search Engines
Examples of health-Related Resources Available on the Internet
Medical Articles and Reports
Services
Health initiatives and health promotion
Surveys
Support
Assessing the Quality of Health Information on the Internet
Usability
Accessibility
Implications of Internet use for Individual and Public Health
Patient-physician relationships
Practitioners’ use of the internet
Hospital web sites
Equality of access
The challenges of using the internet effectively
Health-related uses of the internet in the future
Health and The Internet
What is the Internet ?
First written in 2002 the book now realizes that everyone (in Canada at least) knows what it is and most make use of it. We are one of the most connected coiuntries inthe world.
Search Engines
Various ones that can be used such as google and bing, but these may sometimes give unreliable information.
Better data bases and their online search engines are google scholar as well as ebsco (psycinfo) and pub-med.
A great challenge of using serach engines is to filter through the thousands or millions of hits tog et the best information that is correct and reliable.
Also web link become stale or broken, as Poole et al. identify, a search for diabetes garners 67 million hits and out of 184 of those found in 1999, 59% could no longer be found in 2002 at the same address.
Additionally, the serach engines tend to rate or prioritize sites with paid sites (advertisments) coming at the top of search lists.
Examples of health-Related Resources Available on the Internet
Medical Articles and Reports
All kinds of these are to be found.
Some good sources are:
Centre for Health Evidence (affiliated with University of Alberta & Unniversity of Manitoba)
Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI)
Services
Many service socciation sites exist such as the Canadian Diabetes Association, Canadian Heart & Stroke Foundation, Canadian Lung Association, .....
Health initiatives and health promotion
We have looked at several of these already, such as participaction, go smoke free,
Siem Reap Citizens for Health, Educational and Social Issues , ... .World Health Organization (WHO)Surveys
Canalso be found online such as the McCreary Centre Society which has the Adolescent Health Survey
Support
All kinds of support and support group are also found online.
Assessing the Quality of Health Information on the Internet
Usability
Accessibility
Poole et al. identify the website Health on the Net (HON) as a site that gives a code of conduct based upon the principles seen in Table F-1
Implications of Internet use for Individual and Public Health
Patient-physician relationships
Relationships are changing as we discussed earlier in the course towards a more consumerist style. As such many people are using hte internet to diagnose themselves and looks for treaatments.
This can help inthe physician-patient relationship but may also lead to a strain there where doctors are challenged by or uncomfortable with patients DIY approaches to medicine.
Practitioners’ use of the internet - has also increaed where they may look up during or in between appointments information of the conditions of their patients.
Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites also provide manners in which physicians can maintain contact with their patients, however ethical and privact issues also emerge here.
Hospital web sites
Equality of access
The challenges of using the internet effectively
Health-related uses of the internet in the future
Other future features of Health
Smart Phones and wearable technologies to help monitor heart, blood, activity and other health indicators
Integrated health centres to provide holistic services with a range of practitioners in one place to support the "client" in various aspects of health
Changing roles of health-care providers, with nurse practioners and other "alternative" health care providers taking on more roles
Movement towards more holistic approaches to health including sociological, political and environmental approaches
Greater emphasis on prevention to reduce healthcare costs and promote better health rather than fighting disease.
