This is especially important when delivering a new diagnosis or prescribing a medication with many potential side effects, because the patient may be upset or distracted and may not remember the conversation later.
“At the end of the day, though,” says Dr. Docken, “there is nothing that trumps interacting and communicating with someone who is sitting three feet away from you.”
Your New Colleague, Dr. Internet
Quickly disappearing are the days when patients looked to their physicians as their only or primary source for education. Now, consumers increasingly turn to the Internet for health information.
In fact, the number of U.S. adults who go online to look for this information has increased to about 136 million – a 16% increase since 2005, according to a nationwide Harris Poll released August 2006. These individuals represent 80% of all adults who go online, up substantially from 72% the previous year.
Physicians find that, although they are still captains of their ship when it comes to educating patients about their diseases and treatment plans, they are fast becoming navigators as well. They have to guide patients to credible online destinations for health information so that they don’t float adrift on the Internet sea of information.
“I work under the assumption, now, that people are going to be browsing for health information,” says Eric M. Ruderman, MD, associate professor of medicine in the rheumatology division at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine (Ill.).
Dr. Docken concurs: “This is how medicine is today, and we have to help patients navigate their way through all of this information. Otherwise, patients will just Google their diagnosis and then they are ‘off to the races’ with thousands of Web sites to choose from.”
About 85 million Americans who gather health advice online don’t consistently examine the quality indicators, such as source and date, of the information they find, according to a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Physicians need to proactively monitor and direct their patients to credible Web sites, especially those bearing the “HONcode,” (a promise to maintain conduct standards set by the Health on the Net Foundation, www.hon.ch).
“When patients come to my office, I always ask them if they have Internet access,” says Dr. Lohr. “If so, I give them a list of reliable sites, such as the ACR, Arthritis Foundation, Hospital for Special Surgery, Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center, NIAMS, UpToDate, and disease-specific Web sites.”
