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EDUCATION AND DEBATE: Nicolas Terry and Benedict A Stanberry Education and debate: Regulating health information: a US perspective • Commentary: Legal aspects of health on the internet: a European perspective BMJ 2002; 324: 602-606 [Full text]

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Thinking of an integrated approach in quality management :involving 'midstream' filtering of Health

Scaria Vinod   (28 June 2002)

Thinking of an integrated approach in quality management :involving 'midstream' filtering of Health 28 June 2002
Scaria Vinod, director center for cybermedicine and medical informatics Send response to journal: Re: Thinking of an integrated approach in quality management :involving 'midstream' filtering of Health	Thinking of an integrated approach in quality management :involving 'midstream' filtering of Health information on the Internet Editor- Terry[1] has clearly pointed out the commonly employed filtering methods employed viz, upstream filtering by rating organisations and downstream filtering by consumers or softwares.Both these methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. It is a clear fact that most of the consumers access information via general purpose search engines and it had been substantiated by Eysenbach and Kohler[2] It would be logical to think that the involvement of popular search engines is essential to make quality control procedures effective.Imposing restrictions on search engines as on what to present would be a clear infringement of the freedom of expression. The involvement of search engines can be accomplished by formulating guidelines for search engines to present results of queries to medical terms.This could possibly include presenting a miniature 'trustmark' or 'kitemark' or any obvious 'symbol' along with the search results , so that the consumer can be aware of the authenicity of information beforehand .Availability of an obvious 'symbol' along with the search results would also perhaps overcome the problem of the patient being 'blind' to trustmarks exhibited obscurely on webpages. The search engines may also be given trustmarks based on their compliance with the guidelines .Thus an integrated approach including upstream and downstream filtering along with what can be called an 'intermediate'/'midstream' filtering would be very effective . In my opinion, an accreditation system involving payment would only be suitable for large consumer oriented websites. This would have a negative impact on quality information posted by voluntary organisations and medical professionals especially of the developing countries who would not be able or would not find it logical to pay for these services. References: [1]Regulating health information: a US perspective Nicolas Terry BMJ 2002;324:602-606 [2]How do consumers search for and appraise health information on the world wide web? Qualitative study using focus groups, usability tests, and in-depth interviews Gunther Eysenbach and Christian Köhler BMJ 2002; 324: 573-577 [3]'Midstream' filtering of health Information: new perspective? Vinod Scaria CCMIR Research2002(2) http://www.cybermedicine.150m.com/paper2.html