Medical Wiki’s
By Danielle Rice

In a medical wiki, authorship is limited to physicians who share knowledge about health, medicine and the body among other medical professionals and the general public. Currently, there are 70 active medical wikis on the web to cater to the growing number of people looking for health information and advice in real-time.

A medical wiki is managed and designed similar to any traditional wiki found on the web. A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to be an open, collaborative community website that enables anyone (anonymously) with access to create, add, remove or modify content.

It’s no wonder that medical wikis are growing in popularity. Many Americans are personally experiencing the impact of a shortage of primary care physicians, the usual resource for medical information. These physician-authored wikis also benefit the 47 million uninsured who lack access to care and who often seek medical advice from online news resources.

Most Americans are already online looking for health information. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, three-quarters of all Internet users look for health information online. In addition, 75 percent of online patients with a chronic problem reported that their last health search online affected their final decision on how to treat their illness or condition, according to another Pew Report, “The Engaged E-Patient Population.”

But these aren’t the only reasons medical wikis are becoming popular. Physicians are seeing medical wikis as a modern way to gain thought leadership and additional visibility in their area of expertise. Many physicians are seeing the value in providing their own medical research as a source of information for the general public through these medical wikis. For example, some medical wikis are now including links to the author’s bio and contact information with every physician article.

In addition, it is even possible that medical wikis may play a huge role in becoming the future of medical education, just as long as they maintain good editorial polices and reliable contributors. In fact, according to American Medical News, the medical wiki is the textbook of the future – providing and creating a more vibrant, accessible, up-to-date conversation and library of knowledge than can be found in a textbook or an established medical journal.

Since there are still some medical wikis that don’t require contributors to be credited medical professionals, other recent medical wikis have evolved into a social networking tool to include community discussion groups and message boards.

But how factual is this information online? Who decides which physician or healthcare expert is allowed to edit/add/contribute to the content online? Do these medial wikis create an online forum for experts, professionals and the general public to contribute and educate advanced healthcare knowledge and research?

For more information, check out “Medical wiki blends social networking with research”.

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