Monday, June 29, 2015

This Article Was Going Reasonably Well Until I Arrived At The Last Paragraph.

This appeared a few days ago:

Melbourne doctors take on Dr Google with new medical website Health&

  • Brigid O’Connell
  • Sunday Herald Sun
  • June 28, 2015 12:15AM
IF you turn to Dr Google more often than your GP, the antidote may have been found.
A new website, curated by a board of prominent Melbourne doctors, aims to strip Dr Google of its stethoscope once and for all, with animations and verified information on more than 400 health conditions.
The website, being launched on Sunday by Melbourne start-up Health&, presents topics on the risks of medical tourism and why babies refuse to eat, to the causes of headaches and treating anaphylaxis.
Chair of the project’s advisory board Leon Piterman, Professor of General Practice at Monash University, said while patients had access to more health information than ever, it often lacked the context or personalisation to make it useful.
“The danger of Dr Google is the same danger as trying to self-diagnose or self-manage in any circumstance,” Prof Piterman said.
 “People can get unnecessarily anxious about the symptoms they’ve got.
 “What they need is validated and simply presented information, which can be supplemented with what the doctor says in relation to their specific symptoms.”
…..
The next stage of the website will require an annual subscription, where it becomes a quasi e-health record platform for storing health information and tracking lifestyle changes.
The full article is found here:
(Paywalled)
The bold paragraph really makes me anxious. Anyone who thinks such a pay-walled site of this sort would be a success either knows something I don’t know or doesn’t  know what they don’t know. I would strongly suspect the latter. I really hope they get some expert e-Health advice before they spend too much money.
The only way you ever see portals of this making a difference is where they are linked to a really service provider that the patient is already engaged with and wants to use their services.
Here is the link to the site for you to browse:
David.

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