Finding Reliable Health Care Information Online

The internet can be a deceiving place to find accurate and true health-related information. There are no medical editors on watch for inaccurate or false medical advice. Many websites that offer health advice are only trying to sell their latest health care product or service. Your health is nothing to fool around with. The health care information you are seeking needs to be accurate, as well as informative. It should give you the same reliable information that a medical journal would.

That's not to say there aren't any reliable health-related web sites out there. Many sites do contain helpful information. Choosing the right medical website is the first step you need to do. Don't be fooled by all the links on the original webpage you arrive at. Following all the links can lead you on a wild goose chase, far from the medical description you originally wanted. Most links only bring you to health products and sketchy remedies for sale.

Following a few guidelines will narrow down your search and keep you from getting lost in cyberspace:

• When looking for treatments, diagnosis, or symptoms, stick with the professional medical sites like WebMD.com.
• When looking for a physician, check hospital websites, doctor's sites, and local clinic websites.
• When searching for specific health issues, you can use the Google or Yahoo search engines. Describe your problem in a few words. You will get thousands of results which is overwhelming. The best course of action is to check out the first few results on the page. The first sites listed are the most popular and most searched for sites, so most likely are more reliable.
• Keep away from commercial sites that are dedicated to heath care products for sale.
• The most accurate health information is found on large sites like WebMD.com, Mayoclinic.com, Medicinenet.com, and Healthline.com, and Healthfinder.gov.When looking for treatments and answers that are more complicated than everyday health issues, the best place to look is Medlineplus.gov. This site is operated by the National Institutes of Health and the US National Library of Medicine.

The internet has a huge array of information and can relieve the stress of wondering about certain health conditions and symptoms, but doesn't believe everything you see on message boards and unknown medical sites.

You might want to ask your doctor about sites that he or she know about. This way, you can be sure to find useful medical information between doctor's visits.

Health Information Website Guide:

Dr. Weinberg's Guide to the Best Health Resources on the Web by Harlan R. Weinberg, MD (Publisher: Collins)

One Hundred Health Care Web Sites ranked by the Medical Library Association

Resources:

Healthline by Elizabeth A. Reid, MD, Elks Magazine, April, 2009.