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July 19, 1999 All of a sudden, the hot commodity on the Internet is healthcare information. While nurses and allied health professionals have long touted the value of information for consumers, it looks like—at least for now—we’re on the sidelines of online action for consumers. Last week America Online Inc., the world’s No. 1 interactive services company, and drkoop.com Inc., led by former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, MD, announced a marketing alliance to bring Koop’s health information, services, and resources to cyberspace. The next day, CBS Corp. said it’s buying a 35 percent stake in Medscape Inc., a health Web site. Recently Healtheon bought WebMD, and other healthcare-related start-ups are appearing almost every day. For all the hoopla over healthcare information, what’s happening online seems oddly powerful and limited at the same time. On the powerful side, consumers are harnessing the search power of the Internet to gather information on the latest drugs, treatments, and clinical trials available. Patients meet others with their diseases and conditions and swap stories and solutions in chat rooms and list serves. But on the limited side, there’s a clear lack of translation and interpretation by experts. There’s the danger that patients could assume they know more than they do or that they’ll take one person’s suggestion and inappropriately apply it to their own unique situation. It’s hard to be sure users aren’t taking junk mail as fact. And the sites that offer guidance are extremely physician-centric, with few nurses or allied health professionals involved in the most popular ones. We’re not running specialized chat rooms or dispensing information. There is a huge opportunity for consumers to get direct contact with nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, occupational therapists, and others, and we’re sitting back and watching the physicians make the big deals. The Web is a natural place for nursing and allied health to showcase what we do and to advocate for patients. After all, we’re the post-diagnosis specialists. Nursing and the allied health professions need to create a mega-site that provides practical, professionally interpreted post-diagnosis information to consumers. What better way to express our exciting roles and responsibilities to the masses? And what better way to reach the millions of people who—rightly or wrongly—look to the Web for their healthcare information? If nurses and allied health professionals don’t step up to the plate and get involved in disseminating healthcare information online, there are plenty of others who are eager to do it in our place. What do you think? Barbara
Bronson Gray, MN, RN |