Some 80% of American adults use the Internet for health searches, according to a research report by Pew Internet.
Increasingly, physicians and other medical professionals are finding various uses, especially with the advent of more recent online services and tools, such as Social Networks, Blogging, Second Life, Wikis, Medical Search Engines and Video and Podcasts.
Writiing in Science Roll, Bertalan Meskó provides Ten Tips for Using Web 2.0 in Medicine, with descriptions of various tools and forums, and links to resources.
Meskó is a medical student at the University of Debrecen, Hungary who plans to become a clinical geneticist specialized in personalized genomics—he believes it’s the future of medicine. In a recent post about Medicine and Web 2.0, Meskó writes:
“I’m pretty sure that web 2.0, the new generation of web services, will (and already is playing) play an important role in the future of medicine. These web tools, expert-based community sites, medical blogs and wikis can ease the work of physicians, scientists, medical students or medical librarians.
We believe that the new generation of web services will change the way medicine is practiced and healthcare is delivered. “
There’s a good overview description of various resources available, along with links.
For the full article, read: Ten Tips on How to Use Web 2.0 in Medicine.
Other references: Pew Internet – Online Health Search 2006 (PDF)
Leave a Reply