Evaluating The Evaluators Of Online Medical Information
from the how-about-evaulating-the-evaluators-of-the-evaluators? dept
There have been a ton of stories about how you can't really trust online medical information. While this has just made some people more skeptical of what they read online, others saw it as a business opportunity. A number of services have opened up, saying that they will evaluate online medical information for people who need that information. The NY Times takes a look at those evaluation services and wonders if people are getting their money's worth or just getting ripped off. The idea certainly sounds valid. If you have a certain medical condition, and want to know about new treatments or research being done in that area - it might help to have an expert who can quickly guide you to what is legitimate. It also sounds like many of the services do have happy customers. One of the complaints is that all the information is already available for free, without these fee-based services. But, people aren't paying for the information - they're paying for the filter and the additional knowledge around that disease that they might not have heard about.
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Even Still
2. Medically ignorant journalists won't know the difference. A journalist's job is to stir up controversy, so they are typically quite gullible to claims by frauds about how mainstream medicine "supresses" their research or whatever.
3. There is a great web site dedicated to exposing medical frauds called quackwatch.com, which is free.
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Re: Even Still
It's not just about eliminating the quacks. But, figuring out right information for that individual.
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Re: Even Still
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No Subject Given
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Re: No Subject Given
1. There are laws and ethical standards concerning patient confidentiality. Physicians or researchers who post a blog of their daily clinical activities would be accused of grossly unprofessional, if not illegal conduct.
2. "Consumer focused" raises a red flag in medical science. Medical science cares about what treatments are effective, not what fads consumers like. Pharmaceutical companies are guilty of promoting their drugs as lifestyle choices, using "consumer focused" buzzwords. Drugs are only appropriate for certain conditions, and should be prescribed only at the physician's discretion.
3. Anybody can call themselves an "MD" or "medical researcher" on the web. There are no background checks.
4. Even if they are MD's or researchers, there are still no checks on who is paying them to support a particular development.
I've observed that IT professionals tend to have a poorer understanding of health sciences than average. It comes from a combination of factors --
a) IT professionals think they are smart.
b) Because they think they are smart, and because of the irreverent nature of the IT profession, IT professionals are highly gullible to quack claims of how alternative medicine is "suppressed" by the mainstream establishment, as if it were Microsoft.
c) IT professionals are typically free-market ideologues. However, free market principles usually do more harm than good in health care. Health care is an industry that needs to be heavily regulated, for many good reasons.
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Re: No Subject Given
Who said anything about posting a diary of daily clinical activities? I guess the New England Journal of Medicine should be shut down immediately. If they are publishing medical information they must be violating somebody's privacy in the process.
2. "Consumer focused" raises a red flag in medical science. Medical science cares about what treatments are effective, not what fads consumers like.
I meant "readable" by the average healthcare consumer. If the blog is written like a medical journal article, nobody will understand it.
3. Anybody can call themselves an "MD" or "medical researcher" on the web. There are no background checks.
You can do the same thing in the real world. It might be easier online, but it still the responsibility of the individual to determine the validity of any information they receive from any source. My family has received plenty of bad advice for board certified physicians. I was diagnosed a few years ago with a serious life altering disease. By the time saw another physician for a second opinion I was pretty sure the doctor was wrong just from my own research. Thankfully, he was.
4. Even if they are MD's or researchers, there are still no checks on who is paying them to support a particular development.
How is that any different from how real world medicine works today? You don't know if your allergist is prescribing a new medication because it works better, or because he just got back from a 3 day "conference" in Phoenix sponsored by the drug company.
Health care is an industry that needs to be heavily regulated, for many good reasons.
Yeah, it works so well in Canada.
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Re: No Subject Given
No, that's a naive view. There are lots of rules for what kinds of information can be published how. If you get a medical education, you would know about them.
"I meant "readable" by the average healthcare consumer. If the blog is written like a medical journal article, nobody will understand it."
If consumers are too stupid to understand medical developments, then they shouldn't try to follow developments in the first place. It's why we have health professionals, to deal with issues they can't or shouldn't handle.
"You can do the same thing in the real world. It might be easier online, but it still the responsibility of the individual to determine the validity of any information they receive from any source....How is that any different from how real world medicine works today? You don't know if your allergist is prescribing a new medication because it works better, or because he just got back from a 3 day "conference" in Phoenix sponsored by the drug company."
Two wrongs do not make a right. We've had deteriorations in the quality of health care because free-market ideologues have imposed free market rules on health care, resulting in the morass of health insurance we have now. Places like Hawaii and Oregon have universal coverage, and they haven't turned into the welfare ghettos that free-market ideologues claim.
"Yeah, it works so well in Canada."
Yes, ask all the Americans who take advantage of it.
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