Health Gateway Program  

At Tutu's House

“Exploring health information on the Internet"

Pediatrics Online

A man brings his 6 year old daughter to the pediatrician seeking treatment for chronic skin irritation and potentially allergies, expressing frustration that nothing he and his wife seem to try will alleviate the child’s symptoms. The physician take a thorough history, examines the child, and recommends a number of possible remedies. She prints out a copy of a patient-oriented fact sheet she found on a US government Web site. And then she refers the parents to several other sites that she thinks would be useful.

This is becoming a common scenario for physicians who use the Web to search for patient-oriented information. The medical community has begun taking advantage of the useful, credible information available on the Web. Documents found on Web sites can enhance and, in some cases,  replace the informational brochures traditionally found in doctor’s offices. Web-based patient  information has several advantages over printed pamphlets: 1) Web-based patient  information 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.

(Information for this article taken from Pediatrics on the PC, JAMA, May 20 1998, 279(19):1583-4.)

Common Pediatric Health Issues on the Web

ABCs of Safe and Healthy Child Care (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/hip/abc.htm) features more than 40 fact sheets covering diseases and conditions from asthma to yeast infection.

American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (http://www.aapd.org) features 24 patent information brochures in a question-answer format.

American Academy of Pediatrics (http://www.aap.org), provides information for physicians, including the online version of Pediatrics and a reviewed list of “Best of Pediatric Internet Resources,” and provides a variety of information for consumers in the “You and Your Family” section.

Child/Adolescent Nutrition and Health (http://ificinfo.health.org/index3.htm), for parents particularly concerned about their children’s nutritional needs, provides information on healthy eating habits, how to deal with food advertisements, and when to start infants on solid foods.

HealthFinder (http://www.healthfinder.gov/htmlgen/HFKeyword.cfm?Keyword= Child+Care) offers a variety of links to sites the US Department of Health and Human Services, HealthFinder staff have found useful to physicians & patients.

Immunization Action Coalition(http://wwwimmunize.org/), a not-for-profit organization who seeks to increase immunization rates, provides information on a variety of diseases.

KidsHealth at the AMA (http://www.ama-assn.org/insight/h_focus/nemours/ index.htm) provides information on several subjects, including safety & accident prevention, infant development, childhood infections and emergency care.

Kids Page (http://www.cpsc.gov/kids/kids.html) includes a section dedicated to information on potentially hazerdous products developed for children and adolescents, including bicycles, roller skates, baseballs and skateboards.

Kids’ Vaccinations (http://www.fda.gov/opacom/catalog/vaccine.html) is a fact sheet from the US Food and Drug Administration answering common questions about vaccinations.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (http://www.nih.gov/nichd/html/research.html) focuses on research in pediatrics and human development and includes a useful patient information section advising users of current clinical trials being conducted at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.

Organizations Serving Child Care and Related Professions (http://dpi.wi.gov/rll/ccic/cciclink.html), from the National Child Care Information Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, provides links to agencies that deal with childhood issues, primary development and family matters, along with a brief description of each.

Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (http://ncbi.nlm.gov/Omim/), maintained by the US National Center for Biotechnology Information and the Johns Hopkins University, is an online catalog of human genes and genetic disorders, containing more than 9000 entries that can be searched for by using keywords.

Otitis Media with Effusion Practice Guidelines (htpp://text.nlm.gov) and search for “otitis media”) provides clinical practice guidelines for physicians including clinical outcomes, diagnosis and hearing evaluation, control of environmental risk factors, pharmaceutical, surgical, and other therapies.