Putting Health in the Hands of Patients (swivel)

Sources: The Harris Poll (http://www.harrisinteractiv…) / Swivel

Photo Credit: The Polstar*

As more people are going online for information, they are increasingly turning to internet resources for information they may have once received from a licensed professional; including health care information and advice. Websites like WebMD allow net surfers (aka cyberchondraics) to explore possible diagnoses based on an interactive symptoms checker. Users can also research drugs and treatment and locate local physicians. This graph shows the the percent of adults online and percent of all adults looking for health information online from 1998 to 2005; poll results that indicate an increasing number of adults are searching for health information online. In 1998, 38 percent of adults polled actively used the internet; 27 percent searched for health information online. By 2005, 53 percent of those polled, or an estimated 117 million adults searched for health information online. The frequency of online medical searches have also increased in the past few years with 85% of those polled in 2005 searching more than once in the past month.

According to a recent article by the New York Times Internet corporations Microsoft and Google are planning on changing the nation’s approach to health care by giving more control of health records and information to the patients. A Google Health prototype reads: “At Google, we feel patients should be in charge of their health information, and they should be able to grant their health care providers, family members, or whomever they choose, access to this information. Google Health was developed to meet this need.” A rise in the FDA generic drug approvals may also contribute to patients having more control over their health - and how much they pay for it. Last year Americans spent 275 billion dollars on prescription medications; 60 percent of prescriptions were for generic drugs. As patents are expiring on many brand name drugs and generic versions appear, analysts predict that brand name sales and drug inflation rates will slow down. —Natalie

What you can do

Use resources such as NHS Direct:

What is NHS Direct?

NHS Direct is at the forefront of 24-hour health care - delivering telephone and e-health information services day and night direct to the public. Although the organisation started out in 1997, it has been growing and changing over that time, most noticeably since April 2004.

It is now far more than a telephone health line - NHS Direct has an authoritative health website, and 2004 saw the addition of the NHS Direct digital TV service - one of the largest interactive services in the UK. Over two million people now access NHS Direct every month.