Information Accuracy on the Internet
Since the Internet is used as the basic communication medium, one has to make sure that the information on the Internet, specifically on the websites, is accurate, up-to-date, and comprehensive. The continuous growth in the “self-care industry” suggests that some patients use websites to diagnose their problems. Once these patients ‘diagnose’ their symptoms, some actually pursue self-treatment. It was reported that in 1998, one third of medicine shoppers were more likely to self-treat without going to their doctors for minor illnesses. What happens when these patients decide to try some over-the-counter drugs that may not be the ‘best options’ for them? This is a significant risk for all the parties. Coincidentally, many physicians have been expressing their concerns about the quality of the information on the Internet for a long time (Wolinsky 1998). These doctors are concerned about the questionable self-treatments pursued by the patients,as well as the future of their relationship with those patients. When those patients are told that their information is not accurate, their reaction may not be very positive. They may decide to challenge those doctors by comparing their suggestions against the medical information on the net and create frustrating scenarios for themselves as well as their doctors (Kassirer 2000). In order to assure the accuracy of the medical information on the net, in1995 some of the Internet and telemedicine experts created the Health on the Net (HON) Foundation. If a website chooses to subscribe to the voluntary code of standards established by HON, it can display the HON seal on its website. Since most of the HON standards are about making sure that the parties who give medical advice are medical professionals (or nonprofessionals who disclose their lack of expertise in those related areas), being able to display the HON seal on a website gives more credibility to those who sponsor that site. While this is a worthwhile effort to maintain some level of information accuracy,it has also been stated that the HON standards are not comprehensive enough to eliminate somewhat questionable information on many sites. Furthermore, as stated by Wolinsky (1998), the foundation is not able to serve as a watch-dog due to its lack of formal authority in the industry.
Considering all these challenges, one may not help wondering about the accuracy of the medical information on the Internet and its critical results in the healthcare field. Therefore, being able to provide patients with informative patient health information lines is a small but very valuable step for numerous providers. Since some patients may not fully comprehend all the information that they are presented with in the examination room, offering an on-line medical bulletin board can give these patients an alternate outlet to improve their understanding of the issues without having to go through calling on their doctors and/or pharmacists.While this is too small of a step in the overall e-commerce strategy, at this stage it is an extremely valuable one.
It is important to realize that these information lines, links, or websites in general, still need to be marketed. In order to do that properly,one should build cross-functional teams which are composed of information technology(IT)professionals,medical specialists,healthcare administrators/staff, patients, and marketing specialists. These teams can bring different priorities and perspectives together in developing new ideas to be implemented on the Internet.While IT professionals are essential in developing the appropriate e-commerce components, the human element of the topic in healthcare requires the other parties play significant roles in determining the practical bases for the successful implementation(Flammini2000).Forexample,incase of websites,one needs to make sure that they are designed in ways that patients are able to use them to perform various functions such as having interactive discussions, completing forms, and scheduling appointments at the convenience of their home (Goedert 1999). Finally, regardless how good these options are, the fact that they still need to be marketed requires marketing specialists to be a part of those cross-functional teams