Health Law

Wikipedia for Health Care? It's Coming . . .

By Helen Oscislawski

The Los Angeles Times reported today about MEDPEDIA.com,  the website currently being developed by Internet entrepreneurs, together with doctors, researchers, and other medical professionals in order to create what is hoped (by them) will be largest body of health information on the Internet.  The information being gathered for the website is of the nature typically confined to academic circles.  The team working on Medpedia hopes to make that information understandable and available to consumers.  The LA Times indicates that Medpedia is "[m]odeled on the on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia, but [will be] written and edited only by trained professionals." 

The website lists Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, and the [University of California] Berkeley School of Public Health as some of the organizations that will be assisting in building Medpedia's comprehensive medical clearinghouse.  The official launch of www.medpedia.com is scheduled for the end of 2008, but the website currently contains additional information about what is to come.    

Medpedia is just another example of how health care providers and Internet companies are experimenting with unique and helpful on-line tools to respond to the health IT momentum and a push to use such technology to empower patients.

Full post as published by HIPAA Health Law & Technology on July 23, 2008 (boomark / email).