Health Gateway Program  

At Tutu's House

“Exploring health information on the Internet"

Patient Education Online

How It Works. A physician sees a woman in her twenties with symptoms of headache and nasal congestion. As the doctor talks with her, he perceives she is sad beyond what would be expected, based on her cold symptoms. Using the personal computers in the examining room, the doctor addresses the visit note template and using the embedded practice guidelines, makes a diagnosis of depression.

But the patient is unconvinced. So the doctor uses the PC to access the National Institute of Mental Health Web site (http://www.nimh.nih.gov). He goes to the public information section and then to the page entitled “Information on Specific Mental Disorders, Their Diagnosis and Treatment.” Accessing the depression page, the doctor asks the patient to review the information on the screen, especially the paragraphs on diagnosis. The doctor goes on the see another patient.

Fifteen minutes later the doctor returns, to find the patient much more willing to accept the diagnosis. They discuss treatment options. Before the patient leaves, the doctor prints out the entire section on depression, gives it to the patient, and notes the fact on the visit note.

The Department of Family Medicine at The Medical University of South Carolina (http://www.musc.edu/dfm/homepage.htm) is on of the first healthcare organizations to make extensive use of the Web for patient education.

Traditional Patient Education Material. Doctors have been supplementing verbally delivered patient education with printed material for year, while use of the Web as a medium for patient education is new. Because patients want to be equal parts in making decision about their healthcare, patient education is becoming a hotter topic. Patients are becoming more interested in thoroughly understanding their health. And demanding more sophisticated educational material from their doctors.

The traditional patient educational medium is the paper pamphlet. Most of the pamphlets are clearly written and well illustrated, and represent a good first step. However, they have two drawbacks.

The first is organizational. A physician has to store literally dozens of pamphlets to meet the needs of all patients. A few companies have solved this problem by providing patient education material on CD-ROM, so material can be printed out as needed. But CD-ROMs don’t solve a second more serious, problem; Patient education material that is too general. The material is not customized to the individual and consequently, is not read. Most print and CD-ROM patient education material is intended to be used by a variety of patients.  Consequently it often includes information not relevant to some patients.

Web-based patient  information has several advantages over printed pamphlets:

1) it is, generally free; 2) pages taken from reputable sources are usually more current than a printed brochure; 3) it is readily available and easily reproduced, assuming permission to do so is clearly stated on the originating Web site; and 4) the Web also may offer information on more topics than would be available in print.

Patients Like The Net.    Probably the most important advantage of Internet-based patient education systems is that patients tend to like them. That was the finding of an unpublished study (“Patient’s Perspectives On The Internet as a Patient Education Tool,” by Scott M Morcott, MD, et al.) conducted at the DFM. Forty-five patients at the DFM were given patient education information from the Internet by a lay educator following a clinic visit with their physician. After this educational session they were interviewed and questioned about their experience.  Eighty-six percent of the patients interviewed believed that the Internet was “very useful,” and 73% stated that they had “learned something new” regarding their illness as a result of this encounter. Eighty-seven percent of the patients believed that the information they received would change how they took care of their health, and gave an example of something they had learned. Ninety-five percent interviewed expressed an interest in receiving more patient education materials from the Web at subsequent visits to the DFM.

Patient education can play a major role in improving the patient’s experience, compliance, and relationship with the healthcare provider. In order to be in a position to give each patient meaningful information, healthcare workers need access to a large supply of current education material. There are many potential sources including books, magazines and CD-ROMs. There is no reason to go to the trouble and expense of finding, storing and paying for this material when a growing supply is always available for free on the Internet.

(Information for this article is taken from an article in  Medicine on the Net, June, 1998,

“Involving the Patient in Medical Decisions” by Larry Stevens.)

Patient Education Websites

Center for Disease Control.......... http://www.cdc.gov/

Drug InfoNet........................... http://www.druginfonet.com/index.html

Healthfinder........................... http://www.healthfinder.gov/

Human Anatomy...................... http://www.innerbody.com/

Merck Manual......................... http://www.merck.com/

Medical Matrix......................... http://www.medmatrix.org/

Mayo Clinic............................ http://www.mayohealth.org

National Library of Medicine......... http://www.nlm.nih.gov

Wellness Web......................... http://www.wellweb.com

InteliHealth............................. http://intelihealth.com