THE INTERNET – MEANS OF COMMUNICATION AND PROMOTION OF THE VIRTUAL MEDICAL WORLD

Adina Balan ()

Annals of University of Craiova - Economic Sciences Series, 2010, vol. 2, issue 38, 15

Abstract: In the world of health care, most specialists appreciate information and communication as a major component in this area. Thus, the Internet becomes also in health - the main source of information and communication of professionals in the system, facilitating access to databases, electronic publications and medical journals, information and expertise, to sites of medicine based on evidence. If there are millions of medical websites worldwide, the specialist in the health system in search of a drug, a procedure, of a product or therapy, can replace the entire medical library shelves with a computer connected to the Internet. By accessing the pages of the medical clinics, discussion forums on various diseases, websites of groups of individuals with severe diseases, physical disability or great psychological impact, patients can obtain important medical information. But there is a risk in this medical information explosion that requires the recipient a very great deal of discretion in its use. The commercial assault of excessive promotion of drugs brings also the risc of self-medication and self-treatment so that competent and authorized medical decision is excluded. If in the case of doctors the facility for accessing digital information eliminates many time-consuming cases, for patients the quality of the medical information on the Internet can become downright dramatic. If a Romanian patient calls to health services available on the Internet without regard for hts history, family history, and collateral data included in the health care file, the risk of erroneous medical decision is imminent. To guide the community of consumers and providers of health services, growing by the WWW environment to find reliable information and medical expertise can be a challenge for policy makers in the health system contributing to a better and more efficient health care process.

Keywords: Internet; medical services; eHealth; reliable medical information; medical virtual world; risk; self-medication; the quality of digital medical information; online medical care. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D8 D83 I19 L15 L86 O3 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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