Some time ago I was at the conference on healthcare IT Systems. One of the presentations caught my attention more than the others. The presenter showed and explained a HONcode project [1][2]. It's purpose is to verify and certify trustworthy websites with health and medical information. As there is many false or outdated information on the Internet and people tend to treat themselves without consultation with a doctor I think the HONcode idea seems to be very interesting.
Have you heard about HONcode before?
Do you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
[1] http://www.hon.ch/HONcode/Patients/Visitor/visitor.html
[2] http://www.hon.ch/Global/pdf/TrustworthyOct2006.pdf
ReplyDelete1. Have you heard about HONcode before?
I have never heard about HONcode before, but I knew about some similar websites just for sharing some medical articles and data. Unfortunately I heard that very often some discoveries and shockingly easy solutions for incurable diseases were described multiple times, but there is moderator of the websites that successfully blocks every information that can potentially ruin pharmaceutical industry and show that we don’t need to use crazily expensive medical drugs produced by them. It seems very probable for me that it is true, since I personally used many times natural products instead of chemical substitutes that do not even produce results.
2. Do you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
I have three things to say.
Firstly, such initiatives are valuable. Very, very, vary valuable. There are researchers and docs all over the world, very often working on the same case and they don’t know about each other. Thanks to such initiative there is possibility of contact or at least about comparing results, method or some remarks about the experiments.
Secondly, at the same time it is also available to people who are curing themselves personally and they check what results of some tests mean in the internet. In my opinion it is very bad, because what is written in forums, some opinion of ordinary people that have no clue about medicine can be very harmful or even mortal. Of course it is good to search for other opinions or seek alternative treatments, but such websites can cause people not asking the specialists.
Last but not least, I hope that this website provides really true informations and as I mentioned in the first question, it is not one of those websites that is hiding the truth.
3. Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
I have heard about them, but I don’t recall names of them.
Hi Cezary,
Deletethank you for sharing your opinion!
This page looks like taken directly from the beginning of the Internet era. :-)
ReplyDelete1. Have you heard about HONcode before?
No I have never heard about it.
2. Do you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
My opinion about searching information on your health is that that you have to be real carefull with gathered information.
You can get information on some diseases but you should not take any steps in treating yourself.
But sometimes finding information about some alternative treatmen and medicine is good, later you can consult it with your doctor.
I don't think that putting icon with certyfication on any page will give you some addded value in searching .
When it comes to collaboration between doctors usually it can be really helpfull for doctor which is responsible for your health. But cons will come out when he instead of treating this information as additional one, he will be treating it as his main.
3. Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
Hmm when it comes to pages like https://www.patientslikeme.com/. I don't think that we have something similar in Poland. In this presentation there was page with online lab result, this kind of pages is available in Poland (I think Diagnostyka have one). We have got couple of health information pages also, I am not sure how looks their trustworthy but I don't heal myself with usage of this kind of pages. I don't know any page which fulfills HONs certyfication principles.
I agree that website looks a little 'old-fashioned' :) Maybe because the project was launched 20 years ago.
DeleteThe one of the polish web portals that fulfill HONs certification is portal.abczdrowie.pl (at the bottom of this page you can find a HONcode icon)
My first thought was similar to the one from Tomasz. Their webpage itself doesn't look reliable ;)
ReplyDeleteThey should take any free RWD template and just start using it.
When it comes to your questions, I've never heard about this project, but if it really gives good results, I'll keep my fingers crossed for them.
I think such initiatives are valuable. There are even jokes that no matter what illness you have (e.g. you have a cough), if you try to look for the causes in the internet, you will surely find that you have a cancer. Unfortunately, I cannot find any examples/memes right now.
Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
On our Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology there are projects about classification/rating, e.g. reputation system for Wikipedia authors. I think such projects are rather popular, but my focus is just totally not on them. Therefore, I cannot help you much with the research.
Hi Mateusz,
Deletethank you for your comment. Yes, the website looks not reliable, but it is not necessary to visit it if we would like to find websites with HONcode certificate. There are also browsers' extensions available.
I've never heard about HONcode before, but I dinf this initiative really valuable and interesting. I have many friends who consult Google before doctor's visit or even after it, because Internet knows better and doctors are always wrong. I guess it would be beneficial for their health if they could make use of some reliable source of information instead of blofs, forums, facebook group and comments and articles written by God-knows-who. When it comes to similar projects, one of my friends who is a doctor told me once that when searching for information she is always using Medline {PubMed), a database for medical and scientific only texts. That is the only fairly similar thing that comes to my mind.
ReplyDeleteHi,
DeletePubMed is a very reliable source of medical information. The only problem is that it is usually brings benefits for doctors and scientists. The 'regular' user can have troubles with understanding the knowledge there. Moreover the contenet there is usually in English.
I haven't heared about this project. I think it is very valueable attempt to divide articles according to their medical contribution. It is important in Polish reality because in my opinion most of doctors don't broaden their knowledge after finishing studies. (I know there is legal obligation to do so). But as a patient with "internet knowledge" we have possibility to discuss with a doctor. Troubles appears when two doctors have two different opinions.
ReplyDeleteThe patrial solution may be preparation of public decision supporting system like IBM Watson. There could be module for doctors and simpler for citizens as a source of medical knowledge in a particular area.
Hi Piotr,
Deletethank you for sharing your opinion. Interesting idea with the Watson system.
Have you heard about HONcode before?
ReplyDeleteI have never heard about HONcode but I think it's nice idea.
Do you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
I think that people should not search information about health at all. It is hard to recognise all neccessary symptoms without proper knowldge and to give proper diagnose. On the other hand people will do this because they can and it is easy and fast. In that case verified information may save them from unnecessary worrying about a cancer when the only symptom is a headache.
Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
I think that awarness of trustworthy content is growing so many portals use some methods to verify it. For example Wikipedia does not allow to add text to the main page of article before it is verified by expert or stack overflow marked best answered if it is verified by the person who asked question. These are examples that come to my mind now but for sure there are many more.
Hi Katarzyna,
Deletethank you for your comment. I do not agree with your opinion that people should not search for the health information on the internet, but should do it more carefully and do not believe in everything they read.
1. Have you heard about HONcode before?
ReplyDeleteOnestly I haven't heard about HON code but I guess there are more similar initiatives in health care.
2. Do you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
I believe that every other pair of eyes on document can improve it quality. As far as there are money for independent work of auditor the result of this cooperation should be benefitial. The Internet user would found faster solid information about her or his medical query and I belive there is more probability he would avoid disinfomration there. For example if one medical comapny release cheaper or better drug for some disease than competitor might run false campaign to slow or reduce selling drug. There is big demend to have access to reliable web page with information about drug and diseases. Some of this pages exists but I believe they should be gathered in one place with much more easier access to the audience.
3. Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
Well there is a big auditory market for keeping many domains in proper quality. Many of them exist from several years and many fields are in need for more solid auditors. I know some initiatives in car or food sectors but I don't manage to have access for medical industries.
Hi Piotr,
DeleteI agree with you that there is a need for global reliable portal about drugs and diseases available for the 'regular' internet users.
I haven't heard about this initiative before, but I was aware of the problem of inaccurate or false medical information that people rely on when searching their symptoms on the internet.
ReplyDeleteAny efforts in verification of public content in such important field are definitely worth trying but I don't believe their impact could be big enough to affect the way people are searching information on the internet as long as big players like google, yahoo or bing won't implement that kind of verification system.
I know that PJATK was conducting research in the field of web content verification, the project was called Reconcile: http://reconcile.pjwstk.edu.pl/
Thank you for the information about Reconcile! I will definitely check it out.
Deletethanks for the post, it was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I had not heard of HONcode, but the service I was very impressed. I have often faced the problem of false information on the Internet. This is especially significant when it comes to medical information
In my opinion this is a very valuable idea, because false medical information can harm. on my example, recently had a problem with my back, and according to information on the Internet, I thought that I have an intervertebral hernia,and when I turned to the doctor, it was just a temporary injury, but it made me a lot of nervous. so I think that it would be very useful to clean up false information on the Internet, And besides, to carry out social advertising about false information on the Internet.
there are similar services that block unlicensed music or movies. So I learned a lot from the commentators above
Hi Sebastian,
Deletethank you for your comment. I agree with you, that false medical information can harm. Unfortunately, there is a lot of it on the internet. I am glad that your back is ok :)
Hi, thank you for this article!
ReplyDeleteActually, my recent work directly relates to evaluation of credibility of online medical information :) One of many solutions is based on source evaluation - such as HONcode, but this is only one approach. I try to develop automatic credibility assessment based on textual content only. My work is an extension of works done during the RECONCILE project conducted at our university - check it out!
Regarding one of your questions - yes, I do believe such projects affect people behavior online. Otherwise I wouldn't have chosen such PhD subject :)
Good luck with your research for PhD! I will check the RECONCILE project! Thanks :)
DeleteThank you for the interesting text. The topic is very important, and I think it should be developed. The quality of some sites is appalling. Anyone can create a website and advise on the topic of health, with impunity. I have never heard of a similar initiative.
ReplyDeleteHi Maciej!
DeleteThanks for your comment.
Have you heard about HONcode before?
ReplyDeleteNo, I haven’t but this problem is an old issue related not only to medical issues. I consider one very important thesis from your documents: “Seen on Internet seems to be a sign of quality”.
Do you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
Yes, I find it valuable. However, in my point of view there are two main factors that consist this problem: confirmation of published information credibility and confidence in published information. We should be able to distance ourselves to information on the Internet, unless they are certified.
Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
Yes but only one: RecONCILE, mentioned by Adam. The idea seems to be the same but the range is wider than HONcode.
Hi Damian,
Deletethank you for sharing your opinion :)
Thank you for choosing the interesting topic. I’ve never heard of NONcode before. I consider these initiatives important as they classify the parties in terms of credibility. Societies are becoming more and more aware and are looking for verified information more often. This proposal is a general conclusion on all areas of our activity, although this site is about health and has a great potential because of the aging civilization of the West. Of course, there is a part of the population that claims that reading in the network is true but it’s a matter of low awareness. Unfortunately, at this point I can’t mention any specific examples, but I know there are a lot of them.
ReplyDelete- Have you heard about HONcode before?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately- no. I think that they have to rebuild their brand on the internet to become more trustworthy with their sign, which looks like early 90's, so right now great websites would not like to be branded with them.
- Do you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
Yes, I think that such initiatives are very valuable nowadays. According to the fact, that most of the websites are now user-generated content it is hard to distinguish which information is valuable. Especially when we take health into consideration. There is even a catchphrase when you type your symptoms into Google. First ten results would say to you that you have advanced stage of cancer (even if you have a cough).
- Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
On the internet- no. However, I think that reference in the real world could be peer-reviewed scientific journals that provide more accurate knowledge than popular science periodicals.
Have you heard about HONcode before?
ReplyDeleteNo I havent heard about this particular project.
Do you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
Yes I think initiatives are valuable, I think people are getting more and more aware of credibility problems over many areas of information not only medical. Altho I think google,facebook,youtube the mainstream information highways are having biggest possibility to change situation in field of web credibility.
Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
Yes our internal project Reconcile Net or WOT.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHave you heard about HONcode before?
ReplyDeleteDo you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
I've never heard of HONcode or HON initiative before.
Any initiative fostering verifiable sources of information on the Web are really valuable. Especially these days when terms like "post-truth" or "fake news" are so often heard. And Internet is a really useful when it comes to showing off your ignorance :) I'm not saying that before Internet no one published something stupid but very often publishers (even newspaper editors) acted as a gate keepers and didn't let harmful information circulated.
But those initiatives need to be supported with public education on researching information on general. Without it it can be yet another useful site in a sea of bad ones.
I don't know any other site which certifies other websites whether they're useful but there sites I know that publish articles with verification of popular topics or sometimes debunk myths like snopes.com
I haven’t heard about HONcode idea before. I find such initiative as very valuable one and definitely, it can influence people’s way of searching information on the Internet.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I do not know any similar projects. In my opinion health is definitely subject worth such acting, because unchecked information may (and often does) introduce patients looking for real help into large confusion. If it concerns such sensitive knowledge, it really can cause unexpected consequences, like loss of faith. In case of serious health problems it may simply lead towards getting worse and worse. I believe psycho aspects are more important than medical ones, so simply Internet disturbs in healing process. So such HONcode initiative can polarize “medical research” and cut down all the unchecked information.
On the other hand, there is one serious risk. Sometimes such professional service can give professional information, but not so favorable for a patient. Sometimes the news can be not so good and then, in my opinion, it’s better not to know too much.
That’s why, I think “medicine” information should be forbidden in Internet. In every case the specialist shall decide whether he can give patient the full information or not.
As such, the idea of professionalizing the information is very good initiative. Professional information is better than a random one.
Have you heard about HONcode before? I have never heard about HONcode before.
ReplyDeleteDo you think such initiatives are valuable?
The benefit of using information provided by the government is its credibility and reliability.
Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
Have you heard about HONcode before?
ReplyDeleteHi, I have not heard about HONcode before, but this kind of initiative is necessary. The Internet has a lot of “fake news” that came from experts without proper knowledge. This kind of content may destroy human health or even life.
Do you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
As I wrote before - yes, they are looking information due long queues in healthcare, but also due to limited free time. Internet is probably the biggest clinic that is out of control. I believe there should be law regulations / special department that protect people from abuses. When person has a real problem with own health then it is looking help everywhere.
Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
Google Scholar is trustworthy project which I know - they collects scientific publications, but you know it :)
1. Have you heard about HONcode before?
ReplyDeleteI have heard about HON - Health On the Net Foundation which is a nonprofit organization. It has been founded in 1995 in Geneva. Its purpose was to gather a group of the world's foremost experts on telemedicine and discuss the growing concerns over the unequal quality of online health information.
2. Do you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
I think such initiatives are valuable and thy affect the way people are searching information on the Internet.
3. Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
Unfortunately, I can't find out any other projects apart from those presented here (e.g. Reconcile).
Have you heard about HONcode before?
ReplyDeleteI haven't. End of story :)
Do you think such initiatives are valuable? Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
We could argue if it's valuable or not. In my honest opinion, it's always nice to see different approach to do certain things.
Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
Nope.
Have you heard about HONcode before?
ReplyDeleteNo, I did not.
Do you think such initiatives are valuable?
Yes, I think that everything that can improve our healthcare and our health as it is, is a very valuable initiative.
Can they really affect the way people are searching information on the Internet?
Yes, I think that it future it can have an impact on the way how we search information on the internet
Do you know any similar projects (not necessary regarding health)?
No, I do not. It is not my area