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Key Topic Guide Series - Quality of Health Information, including Physician Directories Online

Web Sites | Articles | Advice in Evaluating Health Web Sites | Journals | Health Web Site Accrediting & Related Organizations

Web Sites

  • Healthratings.org
    A joint project of Consumers Union (publishers of Consumer Reports) and the Health Improvement Institute, this site lists the top 20 most visited sites, and rates six of them as "excellent."
  • UCLA College Library, "How-to Guides" - see Web Evaluation section at bottom of page

Articles

Advice for Consumers, Professionals in Evaluating
Health Web Sites

Journals
  • Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR)
    www.jmir.org
    JMIR is a peer-reviewed free online journal featuring articles on "all aspects of research, information and communication in the healthcare field using Internet and Intranet-related technologies". The Journal is published continuously; each article is loaded onto the site as soon as it has been through the peer-review process. Since its founding in 1999, the journal has published a number of papers examining the quality of health information.
  • Medicine on the Net
    www.corhealth.com
    Medicine on the Net is one of several offerings of COR Healthcare Resources which delivers resources that enable "decision-support for health care leaders." Each issue of the print journal includes a number of feature articles which cover topics in some depth. Recent topics have included clinical guideline web sites, bioterrorism resources, seeking second medical opinions on the Net, and accreditation of health web sites. Each issue also includes ratings (content, style and interface) of web sites on a given topic and a paragraph description of each site. A subscription is needed for full access to the journal online, but ome articles are available to non-subscribers.

Health Web Site Accrediting Organizations and
Related Organizations

  • American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (URAC)
    http://www.urac.org
    URAC accredits health web sites for "quality and accountability". Over 50 standards are applied, grouped into the following four broad categories: disclosure and linking; health content & service delivery; privacy & security; quality oversight. Web sites meeting these standards are entitled to post the URAC Health Web Site Accreditation Seal. Thirteen web sites have received URAC accreditation as of March 2002.
  • American Medical Association (AMA)
    http://pubs.ama-assn.org
    "Guidelines for Medical and Health Information Sites on the Internet" are published on the AMA's web site. The AMA hopes that these will lead to voluntary compliance and does not offer an accrediting service or seal.
  • Health on the Net Foundation (HON)
    http://www.hon.ch
    A not-for-profit, International Swiss organization which aims to lead both consumers and health professionals to "useful and reliable online medical and health information". Has established an eight-point "code of conduct" (HONcode) for web site developers and confers the HON seal which developers can then post on their web sites.
  • Health Internet Ethics (Hi-Ethics)
    http://www.hiethics.org
    This not-for-profit organization has embraced 14 ethical principles for privacy, security, credibility, and reliability of health web sites. It partners with URAC for accreditation based upon these principles.
  • Internet HealthCare Coalition
    http://www.ihealthcoalition.org
    Supports "voluntary guidelines" to be used for self-regulation of health information on the Internet. The Coalition emphasizes consumer education as the best means for assuring responsible use of health web sites. Advocates for the use of standards and principles already developed by other organizations. Consequently, the Internet HealthCare Coalition web site is a good source of information on the range of initiatives in progress.
  • MedCERTAIN
    http://www.medcertain.org
    MedCERTAIN is an international project to develop a standard vocabulary (MedPICS) for web site developers to use to "describe and disclose properties of e-health services, to model user needs, and to express third party-opinions". These standards have been likened to food labels such as those required by the US FDA. This standard vocabulary can be used to create a rating system which will lead to a "transparency mark / trustmark system". The organization emphasized that it is not a "rating agency" but rather "an infrastructure fostering the distribution of digital ratings, opinions and recommendations from different people and organizations, including self-disclosure information of information providers themselves."
  • Medical Library Association, Consumer and Patient Health Information Section (CAPHIS)
    http://caphis.mlanet.org/consumer/index.html
    The MLA's CAPHIS section publicizes a list of the "Top Ten Most Useful web sites" on the Medical Library Association web site. This list is a subset of the CAPHIS "Top 100 List" of "web sites you can trust". MLA and CAPHIS endorse the Criteria for Assessing the Quality of Health Information on the Internet of the Health Summit Working Group (see above). The criteria used to evaluate the quality of these web sites include: credibility, sponsorship/authorship, content, audience, currency, disclosure, purpose, links, design, interactivity and caveats.
  • PatientINFORM.org

http://www.patientinform.org/PI/home.jsp

PatientINFORM.org is a collaborative project of several medical journal publishers and health care organizations (American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, and others) to provide free access to what its experts deem to be important research for several highly prevalent diseases.  Ultimately, the sponsoring organizations will provide "plain language" versions of these studies.  The site also explains how to interpret studies and defines key terms such as "randomized controled trial (RCT)," "double blind," "case control" and "cohort" (see under Understanding Medical Research tab).

The Consortium's Work with The Commonwealth Fund

Back to top

Stone, Elliot M., Jerilyn W. Heinold, and Stephen C. Schoenbaum. Field Report: Accessing Physician Information on the Internet New York, NY: The Commonwealth Fund, January 2002. Order this report through the Commonwealth Fund web site or view PDF format by clicking here.

The Massachusetts Health Data Consortium researched and wrote this paper with assistance and grant support from The Commonwealth Fund. The study examined 40 physician directory websites for 28 data elements, and reached conclusions about the need for a minimum standard data set, the unique national provider identifier (mandated by the federal HIPAA law), and standard disclosure statements.

Presentation to the 'Finding Doctors in Chicago' project of the Midwest Business Group on Health; October 17, 2003

Planning Grant: A Proposal to Develop a Pilot Data Center About

Physicians and Physician Performance, August 2000 - This original planning grant preceded the above research. The planning document contains a number of useful links to previous research done on this topic.

Master Physician Database

Massachusetts Health Quality Partners, a coalition of health plans, provider organizations, government agencies and purchasers, was awarded a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to provide and evaluate physician incentives for improving preventive care and chronic disease management. The Massachusetts Health Data Consortium was chosen by the Massachusetts Health Quality Partners to develop the Master Physician database that will provide the infrastructure for the performance data. The Consortium will also provide its expertise for the physician incentive database structure design as well as the fulfillment of the customized reporting requirements.

 

Physician Directory Web Site Evaluations

Shelton, Linda, Laura Aiuppa, and Phyllis Torda,

Recommendations for Improving the Quality of Physician Directory Information on the Internet.  The Commonwealth Fund and NCQA, August 2004.

 

 

Physician Directory Web Sites (selected)

Principles of Physician Performance Measurement

 

 

This page last updated August 16, 2006

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