MHI2003Consumer/Public Health Informatics

Murtaza Ali

Electronic Resource Review“www.Healthline.com”

Purpose:

• To provide highly reliable and up to date health information to consumers :

“who consult their medical conditions online by reviewing latest information for specific

medical conditions as a second opinion”

General Description:

• Founded in 1999 as YourDoctor.com • Revised and Re-launched in 2005 as

Healthline.com• Corporate office in San Francisco (US).• Medical Advisory Board (Physicians).• Medical Informatics Specialists.

General Description Cont…

• Offers Medical expertise , health tools from well known medical publishers and partners such as :

• Harvard Health Publication.• Reed Elsevier.• GALE Cengage Learning• AHFS Drug Information

Major Features:

• Risk Assessment tool• Quizzes• Health Calculator (BMI, Calorie burn)• Supplements by Disease• 3D Body Maps (images and videos)• Healthline blogs (RSS feed)• Search ( Diseases, Drugs, Symptoms, Doctor)

Intended Audience

• Patients• General Public• Medical Students• Healthcare professionals• Consumer Media (AOL, Health.com)

Medicine 2.0 Rating Scale (Eysenbach scale)

Dimension Points Narrative Justification of rating

Participation 3 Healthline has advanced end user content management (health blogs) function which allows the users to read and give their comments.

Openness 2 Healthline contains open content/data and it exports some of its content to other health related sources.

Collaborative 2 RSS feed is available for the new events and news.

Apomediation 1 Consumers can only do simple discussion, commenting without rating.

Social Networking 1 Users can create profile but there is no social networking option available such as relationship with other users (add as a friend).