Sep 19, 2001 09:00 PM
6159 Views
It was a tragic, sudden death for our office colleague. A 38 year old, jovial and healthy person, suddenly started feeling low and weak, followed by high temperature. Dismissing it as normal flu, he had ''paracetamol''. He felt better after that and resumed office. 2 days later his condition looked worse and we forced him to go home. He was admitted to hospital the same day. Soon enough his liver and lungs failed and he was shifted under artificial respirator to a better hospital - Leelavati at Bandra, Mumbai, India. His body was failing despite several efforts by doctors. His kidney failed. He expired to our disbelief, within 2 weeks. The culprit - falciparum protozoan passed through a mosquito causing cerebral malaria.
I knew of WebMD for a long time, since I signed for Hotmail and they kept sending me newletters from WebMD, which I dismissed as junk mail to my trash box. Since Engineer by background, I was absolutely disinterested in medicine - I was so hopelessly wrong! But this time, I decided to check it out.
I was greeted by a simple page that had some current news on heart and five links to right - Health, Physician, Office Services, Office Tour, and About WebMD. Some links for condition center, message boards and health tools were at the bottom and quick search facility at the top. I clicked on Health, only because it seemed so common.
I instantly liked the page that appeared. It is definitely a neat page with pleasant yellow and cyan colors. Links to places mentioned above and other locations were neatly lined up on the left. The center of the page had latest medical news (American tragedy), and some highlights. Conspicuous were three combo box sections - Stay healthy - food and fun and general health topics, Newly diagnosed had major illness and Living with illness covered back pain, arthritis, AIDS etc. Next there were news and links to partner sites. A very good web page considering the huge content and plethora of information.
In fact the content and categories are so massive that for the first time I am not able to give you an in-depth view....in 8000 word limit of MS. But here are some details:
WebMD: the leader in online health information helps the healthcare system work for consumers, physicians by providing services such as:
Portal Services: This deals with disseminating credible and trusted healthcare information to consumers through health news, articles, research reports, condition-specific centers, online health and lifestyle product catalogues and ordering services and lots more.
Transaction Services: This forms the main business service or revenue model. It provides electronic exchange of data for physicians, hospitals, pharmacies and even consumers, which aims at reducing the costs of claims handling, eligibility and coverage determination, patient billing etc. Example: WebMD facilitates electronic prescribing and electronic ordering and reporting of lab tests.
Physician Services: This is major revenue earner service. WebMD is the leading provider of physician office management information systems (software solutions) that help physicians automate billing, maintain medical histories and charts, bill third parties and patients and access healthcare information. WebMD also offers online services for physicians and physician office managers, including access to medical research, news, and professional journals and continuing medical education.
The above is what WebMD is all about. But reasons why I liked it are as follows:
1. Medical Info:This info is free and lots for you and me (non-medicine related people), especially considering consulting and advising fees charged by doctors...but yet consulting a physician is important...I guess...what say Neetu? Though I am not from medical, it looked complete to me. The info comes from various medical institutes - reviews which are reviewed by their peers, government bodies, partner sites, corporations like DuPont, non-profit organizations like American Heart Association etc, besides their own team of certified medical journalists and 100+ individuals having advanced degrees in clinical informatics, ophthalmology, cardiology, neurology etc.
2. Diseases and condition:Name one disease and they have it listed complete with what the disease is all about, how it happens, is it contagious, the source, the symptoms, the treatment, the diet control during and after illness...whoa! time for Kit Kat.
3. Database of medicine:A-Z medicine database is another wonderful aspect. Amazing is the word. Consider a medicine - is it known by any other name, what is dosage recommended, for men or for women or both. Is it suitable for children, for pregnant women? Any side effects or normal effects. Please note that these are mainly medicinal names and may not have commercial names.
4. Health-E-Tools: The best that this site has to offer. You can maintain your own health record here. Women have tools such as ''Pregnancy and ovulation calender'' and there is ''immunization planner'' for children besides diet and fitness journal. But the interactives and illustrated guides are entertaining and educating - see it, I urge you. There are fun-to-watch animated guides that explain various diseases like breast cancer, osteoporosis, schizophrenia, heart disorders etc. There are several topics listed such as food pyramid, parts of skin etc that is easy to understand, especially due to images, figures and animations.
5. Quick search: Like I mentioned earlier that this content site is massive and looking for a particular thing in mind by clicking on links, would waste your surfing time and chances are you may get lost. The quick search, which is a fixed frame i.e common to all web pages, is a God's gift. The search results are from various affiliates and there is a percentage weightage against each result, showing you relevancy.
Wonderful aspect is that I searched for ''spondilitis'' and it did not give me any results. It suggested that there is probably a spelling error and may be I am looking for ''spondylitis'', ''spondylitic'', ''spondylit'' or ''spondylosis''. I WAS OVERWHELMED!!
6. Message centers:There are many interesting findings here. This is a forum where people leave their messages, experiences and would like to share their feelings with others suffering from a similar problem. There are many points that may prove useful for others to take precautions or where to heed during emergency etc. This is explicit for social needs of human beings.
It has also won the ''World Wide Web Health awards - Spring 2000'' in several categories such as ''Health Information'', ''Best Structure and Navigation'', ''Best Interactive Site''.
Overall I would say that the site has more precise and complete information that doesn't seem to be biased by any commercial interests and is simple to understand. I don't just recommend this site. I STRONGLY AND HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS SITE. Its now in my favourite list (IE6) and in channels list (Neoplanet).
