House supports guiding patients to evidence-based medical websites, apps

The average U.S. consumer spends significantly more time researching health information online than he or she spends consulting with a physician, a 2013 survey by communications firm Makovsky revealed. And nearly three-quarters of American Internet users had recently searched for health information online, a 2012 survey by the Pew Research Internet Project found.

Addressing this reality, the AOA House passed a resolution Saturday encouraging physicians to recommend evidence-based resources to patients and to educate them on the importance of seeing a physician when they are injured or otherwise needing a medical diagnosis.

Michael Brown, DO, who assisted the AOA’s Bureau of Communications in developing the resolution, notes that the resolution acknowledges the value of health information websites. The sites help patients learn more about their health conditions and stay actively engaged in their own health care, he says.

“Osteopathic physicians recognize that our patients use technology to find information about their health,” says Dr. Brown, a family physician in Kearney, Missouri. “We realize that they go to it even more often than they go to us as their doctors, and what we want to do is stress that the AOA is poised to help guide them to the correct resources. They can bring their information to us, their physicians, and we will help them with that information.”

Dr. Brown says he frequently guides his own patients to Internet resources that he has vetted to help educate them about their illnesses.

“For instance, when I have newly diagnosed asthmatic patients, it’s hard for me to show them how to use an inhaler,” he says. “Well, there are thousands of videos showing people how to correctly use an inhaler. So I show patients in the office, and then I send them home and I say, ‘Check out these resources.’ I do the same thing with EpiPens for my newly diagnosed diabetic patients. There are so many resources out there that can extend our practice from a 15-minute visit to this great world of information.”

Dr. Brown hopes the AOA will continue developing patient-friendly, evidence-based online health information that DOs can share with their patients, he says.

Arizona delegate Breanne Hirshman, OMS II, says that with the vast range in the credibility of information on the Internet, a resolution addressing the use of medical websites is important.

“Even as a medical student, sometimes I’ll look something up on Wikipedia for a quick reference, and then I’ll go back after looking at more credible sources and realize that there is an error,” says Hirshman, who attends the A.T. Still University-School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona in Mesa. “It’s disconcerting to think that patients may rely on sources such as Wikipedia, which are not necessarily 100% accurate, as ultimate truth. There’s a lot of misinformation on the Internet. We as a profession should be encouraging the dissemination of factual evidence-based medical resources for patients to use.”