[WikiEN-l] Docs look to Wikipedia for condition info: Manhattan Research

[Delirium]

Thomas Dalton wrote:
> 2009/5/23 Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>:
>   
>> http://www.mmm-online.com/Docs-look-to-Wikipedia-for-condition-info-Manhattan-Research/article/131038/
>>
>> http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2009/05/beyond-wikipedia.html
>>     
>
> "Nearly 50% of US physicians going online for professional purposes
> are visiting Wikipedia for health and medical information, especially
> condition information, according to a Manhattan Research study.
>   

An interesting finding. There's been calls for literally decades now for 
greater use of electronic information dissemination in medicine, and one 
of the big proposals that's been bandied about but never really 
implemented is some sort of widely available database of conditions, 
symptoms, treatments, etc. In specific areas there are "best practices" 
compenedia, but there's no giant database just summarizing everything, 
even the stuff that isn't worked out yet (physicians still need info on 
conditions even when they aren't totally well understood yet).

As far as I understand, the main stumbling blocks have been that nobody 
can agree on who should make the database, what the process will be for 
verifying information, what access policies should be like, who would be 
responsible if there were errors in it, what constitutes evidence worth 
including, etc., etc. Seems doctors are voting with their feet and 
deciding that Wikipedia's attempt at tackling all those is at least 
better than nothing.

-Mark