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Health-care information is all around us - in books, magazines, leaflets, TV and radio programmes, advertisements. ... Over the last five years there has been a flowering of high-quality Internet sites providing information on a tremendous range of health-related topics. This has happened thanks to the fortuitous collision of two things: the arrival of the Internet itself, a new and easy way to make information available to a very wide audience at little or no cost, and the consumer health movement, spearheading a new recognition that patients and the public have both a right and a need to be better informed about their health and health-care. There are now many very useful health-care Web-sites, quite a few not-so-useful Web-sites and a thorny problem of how to find the former rather than the latter. ... Originally it was just a means for connecting researchers together, but today it is like a whole set of parallel universes of information used not only by researchers, but also by educational institutions, by government, by commerce, by health-care agencies and by the public. It is easy to access information on the Internet, using the World Wide Web, and it is almost as easy to publish information, after a little training. ... To survive in todays "Information Society" it is necessary to become skilled in handling a wide range of information sources, and this is especially true for health-care information. ... If, however, I act on bad advice that I find on a health-care Web-site then my good health or even my life may be at risk. Health information is important and for this reason many groups are working towards ways to help us find reliable health information on the Internet.
The interest in consumer health information predates the emergence of the Internet and is based on solid clinical and ethical considerations. A medical consultation between a patient and a doctor is an exchange of information. ... About one quarter of a typical consultation with a general practitioner is spent in giving information to the patient. ... Surgical patients given fuller information before surgery suffer fewer post-operative complications. ... Information is clinically effective. There is also an ethical requirement for doctors to pass on information to patients. ... In the United Kingdom the General Medical Councils principles of good medical practice incorporate the provision of sufficient information. The National Health Service Patients Charter also enshrines the right to "have any proposed treatment, including any risks involved…and any alternatives, clearly explained". There is a shift in health-care from a paternalistic model to one where doctors and patients work together in partnership. Taking a more active role in our personal health care means that we all have more interest in health-related information.
In practice it can be difficult for a doctor to communicate all the information that a patient wants in one short consultation.
Approximate Word count = 2340
Approximate Pages = 9.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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