... At least three-quarters of all Internet users look for health information online, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project; of those with a high-speed connection, 1 in 9 do health research on a typical day. And 75 percent of online patients with a chronic problem told the researchers that “their last health search affected a decision about how to treat an illness or condition,” according to a Pew Report released last month, “The Engaged E-Patient Population.” ...
There are so many sites today and the landscape is changing so rapidly that it would take an encyclopedia rather than a newspaper to list them. But they can be grouped into five broad, often overlapping, categories: ...
MEDICAL RESEARCH SITES offer access to the published work of scientists, studies and a window into continuing research. Examples include PubMed from the National Library of Medicine; clinicaltrials.gov, which tracks federally financed studies; psycinfo, with its trove of psychological literature; and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the government’s registry on alternative medicine research. ...
Dr. Talmadge E. King Jr., chairman of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, says doctors are coming around to seeing the value of a patient who has gone online for information.
Patients in his pulmonary practice, he said, sometimes come into his office holding medical journal articles he has written “and quiz me.” The better-educated patient might stump the doctor, he went on, but these days “it’s much easier for me to look them straight in the eye and say, ‘I don’t know’ ” and promise to get back to them. “Patients know you’re not all-knowing,” he said. “They’re not upset by that.” ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 10/01/2008 01:19:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
