Published 22 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a883
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a883

Feature

Information technology

How the internet is changing health care

¹ London

A new website allowing patients to rate doctors has attracted much attention. But, as Michael Cross reports, the internet offers many more possibilities for empowering patients

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Medical practitioners have long been public figures. However, the worldwide web is subjecting doctors to a level of popular scrutiny once reserved for politicians and entertainers. From last week, anyone with access to the internet has been able to read anonymous patients’ reviews of individual doctors in the United Kingdom, searchable by name, location, and specialty.

iWantGreatCare is part of a healthcare information phenomenon: the compilation and sharing of facts and opinions by patients equipped with new techniques for sharing multimedia data. Although sometimes dismissed as another internet craze,¹ so called web 2.0 is attracting interest as the catalyst for a consumer led revolution in health care. The London think tank Demos says the "democratisation of information" through technologies such as user created "wiki" encyclopaedias and online social networks will fundamentally change the relationship between patients and healthcare practitioners.²

What is web 2.0? Web 2.0 covers a range of activities in which web users . . . [Full text of this article]

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