Health and The Internet

by Sandy Berger

Use of the Internet by doctors is on the rise. Physicians' use of the Internet has increased significantly since 1999. A recent report from Harris Interactive shows that most physicians go online daily. Now more than half our doctors use e-mail to communicate with their professional colleagues. E-mail also serves as an effective tool when used by doctors to interact with their support staff. An interesting finding was over 40% of physicians have their own Web site.

But it seems doctors are not interested in making these Web sites interactive. As a matter of fact, physicians are not using the Internet and e-mail to communicate with their patients. Contrary to expectations, few physicians are using e-mail to communicate with patients because of privacy and security concerns. Only 14% of doctors send clinical information about individual patients via e-mail. It was found that more than 1/3 of the physicians polled would be willing to jump on the Internet bandwagon and use e-mail to send clinical information to their patients if there were some guarantee of privacy.

Health and the Internet are an amazingly popular combination, as many physicians are discovering. But the use of the Internet by the medical field is not without its concerns. Besides privacy issues, there are other areas that primarily affect computer users researching medical topics on the Internet. Another recent study found much of the content published on health information Web sites offer incomplete, misleading, or difficult to understand data. Numerous sites leave out key information, offer out-of-date content, or publish contradictory facts. Often there is little distinction between advertising and medical advice. 

Yes, the growth of Internet use by both patients and doctors is impressive. No, the Internet is not yet the perfect tool for the medical world. The best advice may well be to continue to be cautious about privacy and security issues and to make sure you check the source of your information – especially when the subject is as important as your health.