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Date: Tuesday, April 28, 1998
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Damon Thompson (202) 205-1842
HHS UNVEILS NEW FEATURES FOR "HEALTHFINDER," THE GOVERNMENT GATEWAY WEB SITE FOR HEALTH INFORMATION
Surgeon General David Satcher today unveiled new features and services for healthfinder, the government's health information web site which has served over 1.7 million visitors since it was launched a year ago. The healthfinder site, at www.healthfinder. gov, serves as a gateway, helping people find reliable health information throughout the Internet's World Wide Web.
"The healthfinder web site has been one of the most popular and useful of all Internet sites sponsored by the federal government," Secretary Shalala said. "The new features we're adding today will make it even more valuable for the thousands of persons who consult this site for health information every day." Dr. Satcher made the announcement at the opening session of the Partnerships For Networked Consumer Health Information Conference.
"If we want people to make sound decisions about staying healthy and managing their health care, we must give them easy access to the information they need," said Surgeon General Satcher. "The healthfinder site reflects our commitment to helping consumers prevent illness, understand diagnoses, explore treatment options, seek support, and generally become more health-literate."
The enhancements to healthfinder's broad range of resources and capabilities that were announced today include:
- A new section called "Smart Choices" offers guidance to consumers who are seeking quality health information and
care -- how to get healthy, stay healthy, and deal with chronic disease; how to locate good doctors and hospitals; how to report fraud and complaints; and how to find reliable health information on the Internet.
- On the new "Just for You" pages, healthfinder offers its top picks, and the best wellness and health information grouped by age and ethnicity, to help people who are looking for information to help their children, for example, or their aging parents. Professionals can find tailored resources here too.
- Easy key word searching has been augmented with more powerful full-text searching that allows those users whose interest areas are not listed in the 1000+ topic index to more easily find what they are seeking.
- Searching can now be done from any page within healthfinder, and search tips now pop up to help less-experienced users. Guidance on how to search the World Wide Web for health information is also now included.
- More information resources in the 35 core subjects that have produced the highest volume of user traffic, including cancer, heart disease, nutrition, diabetes and immunization.
- More Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on popular topics that help make it easier for users to begin their searches.
Since healthfinder was launched, it has been frequently cited for its contribution to consumers looking for health information on the World Wide Web. Newsweek called healthfinder "A terrific first stop." USA Today calls healthfinder "A prescription for headaches caused by the dizzying morass of health information on the Internet." And U.S. News & World Report said "Got a bad case of medical confusion? A visit to the Department of Health and Human Services' healthfinder site might clear it up... Take in a couple of pages. you'll feel better in the morning.
healthfinder gives consumers easy access to all HHS' specialized web sites, including:
- the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- the Food and Drug Administration
- the National Library of Medicine
- the National Institutes of Health
healthfinder was launched by Secretary Shalala April 15, 1997. It offers rapid access to other government health information, links to other sites with reliable health advice and data, and additional resources to help consumers stay healthy, confront illness, and care for their families. healthfinder's core offerings include online and print publications, libraries, clearinghouses, referral services, research and clinical information, databases, discussion and self-help groups, and hundreds of other resources.
With usage of the site still rising at nearly 10-15 percent a month, healthfinder is meeting increased consumer demand for health and medical information by expanding its resources on an ongoing basis. New resources are carefully reviewed to ensure the credibility of the sponsoring organization before they are added to the site. In the past year, healthfinder's index of reliable resources has quadrupled in size to more than 3,200 links to documents and organizations.
Efforts are underway to promote healthfinder to libraries, schools and other community organizations that are offering free Internet access to the public. The site's easy to use search interfaces work equally well with graphical or text-only web browsers, making healthfinder compatible with all equipment.
healthfinder is managed by HHS's Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion in collaboration with many other agencies. The site's name and logo are trade marked (healthfindertm). To reach the site go to . Those without Internet access are encouraged to check their local libraries or call HHS's National Health Information Center at 1-800-336-4797 to receive free information referrals. The Partnerships '98 Conference is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Annenberg School for Communication, and the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
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Note: HHS press releases are available on the World Wide Web at: www.hhs.gov.