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What would a “good” WebMD look like?

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Re: What would a “good” WebMD look like?

#101

Post by victorclf »

Medscape is what WebMD should be. It targets health professionals but it's a great resource for independent learners.

There are great summaries for every disease and treatment written by doctors and researchers. Summary includes epidemiology, symptoms, causes, prognosis, possible treatments, novel treatments, differential diagnoses, etc.

Given that there are bad professionals in every area, it's a great resource to evaluate if your doctor's diagnosis and suggestions make sense.

Unlike your local doctors, good online resources don't have financial incentive to recommend unnecessary drugs or surgeries where the risks outweigh the benefits.

Re: What would a “good” WebMD look like?

#102

Post by giantg2 »

I don't see what the big problem is. WebMD, drugs.com, etc are generally fine for me when I want some quick basic info. Some of the stuff they're complaining about WebMD not having, like percentage of different side effects, are available on other sites like drugs.com. If I want in-depth info, I'll visit PubMed. Sites like NIH, CDC, and FDA can be helpful, but generally not any better than WebMD in regards to format, content, searchability, or precompiled rankings/lists.

Re: What would a “good” WebMD look like?

#103

Post by giantg2 »

edmundsauto wrote: post #98
_fat_santa wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue isn't data, its the "packaging". Going through the NHS website, it's useful if you already know what you have. I'll use myself as an example because I had an ingrown hair on my neck a few weeks back, went on google and I didn't search for "Ingrown Hair" because at that stage, I didn't know that it was an ingrown hair. I searched for "bumps on your neck" which led me to conclude that it was an ingrow…

This is the model for weather in the US. Do you like weather.com and all the derivatives?

Is weather.com the root, or is it noaa.gov?

Re: What would a “good” WebMD look like?

#104

Post by 1auralynn »

thomasfedb wrote: post #55
kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #4

Sure this article is spammy self-promotion, but their prototype is exciting. I’d use it. It’s frustrating to go to a drugstore and see medicines for a cough, let’s say, each with a different active ingredient, and be unable to find concrete information comparing the effectiveness of each ingredient. And wow, the WebMD article they mentioned on essential oils was terrible. It really lowers my opinion of WebMD. At this…

Isn't that what the pharmacist is for? Pharmacies sell some dumb stuff, but if you actually ask for advice from the person with a license they'd like to keep, you should get some straight talk I'd think.

I'd say over 50% of the time at my pharmacy, this would involve waiting in line for 20 min and talking to a harried, overworked pharmacist who may or may not be up on the latest research... not a great UX.

Re: What would a “good” WebMD look like?

#107

Post by cecilpl2 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #89
tmoravec wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there's a private option that's terrible (WebMD) and a private option that's terrific (Merck Manuals). And it's the terrible one that ranks well at Google. Sounds like a Google problem and apparently only a Google problem.

> Sounds like a Google problem and apparently only a Google problem. I want something like webrings to become A Thing again. A user curated search engine. And the users doing the curated need to be vetted. I don't know if this is even possible, but I get tired of having to come to HN to get a human recommendation that is miles better than the algorithmic crap from the current search engines.

> And the users doing the curated need to be vetted.

It comes back to the age-old question: Who vets the vetters?

Re: What would a “good” WebMD look like?

#109

Post by gadders »

switch007 wrote: post #58
jjar wrote: post #15

A better question might be: Why is the private sector responsible for providing accurate health information? As this article shows, the incentives for people running medical websites and the people reading them are not aligned. I'd say the UK NHS website and symptoms/medications pages hit the nail on the head - https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/ . It has no advertising and provides short, easily readable and actionable i…

One issue with the NHS is that I get the impression the information they publish that strongly respects their goals and desires perhaps to the detriment of patients sometimes. I’ve certainly noticed in the past big differences in advice. The NHS will downplay and not suggest investigations whereas another (non UK) site does the opposite. The NHS advice surely is carefully crafted not to cause unnecessary (from their…

Agreed. I think you would be naive to not think the NHS information factors treatment cost/managing demand into their answers as well.

Re: What would a “good” WebMD look like?

#110

Post by Angostura »

switch007 wrote: post #100
Angostura wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't necessarily assume that not suggesting investigations is detrimental to patient health. There is a continuing big debate in the UK medical profession about how over-investigation and over-medication/medicalising people can be a real problem in terms of patient health. If you are seeing a disparity between UK and US in terms of advice about when something needs to be investigated, it could be that the US si…

I was careful to say non-UK. (I’m also not American fwiw) I agree with many of your points.

Apologies for the US assumption.
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