Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What would a “good” WebMD look like?

blog.tjcx.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 323 posts

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

#61

Post by _fat_santa »

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…

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 ingrown hair (followed by a doc telling me the same thing).

One idea I've had for a long time is the US Gov't (and all major governments) should have a large data gathering/distribution operation. This data would be things like medical research, and other data that would be in "the public interest" (basically all the data we have now, just in one place), everything from meeting notes, congressional bills, etc.

With a wealth of data from a single source, companies like WebMD could stop focusing on how to get the data, and shift their focus to how to "package" the data. A list of conditions with symptoms is nice, but lets repackage that into a "medical graph" that lets you explore related conditions through symptoms. Companies could then compete on the "packaging". You could go to FreeMD and get the same data as you could on WebMD, but WebMD has a much better search engine for X thing so they are worth the $4.99/month cost.

It would be expensive, and probably be a decade long multi billion dollar operation. But imagine the revolution in government services if there was a single source of truth for data.

There are arguments against this, mainly do you want a government to have that much power. But I think it could be done with some strict limits and checks. Data in this API would only be public government data, so IRS data and other private information is not on there.

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

#62

Post by readthenotes1 »

Stopped paying attention at "a 47% increase in all published health knowledge."

Not hardly. Maybe a X% decrease (if Science is advancing), but the amount of garbage, not knowledge, is overwhelming. (Maybe biased memory, but I think every PubMed article that has come up here has been ripped to shreds)

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

#63

Post by snarf21 »

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…

It is the misaligned incentives that come from advertising. Click-bait and outrage drive views and ad revenue. Look at the "news" segment these days.

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

#64

Post by firasd »

An interesting example: a few months ago I dropped something on my toenail and it turned black.

Wading through WebMD etc (which is where google was sending me) was not helpful, especially in between the popups and autoplay videos

I finally restricted my search to wikipedia and quickly found out that it's called 'subungual hematoma' and "usually self-resolving", which is what I needed to know.

Recently I tried this query on GPT-3 and it worked well too:

Prompt: Something fell on my nail and it turned black

GPT: Possible causes for a black nail include: trauma to the nail, a melanoma, or a subungual hematoma (a collection of blood under the nail). If the black nail is accompanied by pain, swelling, or redness, seek medical attention. If the black nail is not painful and has no other symptoms, it is likely a subungual hematoma and will eventually grow out with the nail.

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

#65

Post by robbiep »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #52
csours wrote: post #28

Why do scientific studies have such poor user experience? Partly because they're written to pass peer review, not to inform practitioners or the public. I want to know one main thing before I read your study - Why should I believe your study? That is: what is the sample size, did you pre-register methods, who funded the study, what type of study is it, etc. Studies are written for paper publications, but that hasn't…

> Why do scientific studies have such poor user experience? > Partly because they're written to pass peer review, not to inform practitioners or the public. Neither you nor the public nor practicioners should be reading "scientific studies". Please remember that the actual value of any one scientific study is practically _zero_. They are only useful to big companies and/or national scientific bodies which actually ma…

This is a very pertinent point, and i speak from experience when I say that if less laymen (and women) tried to read scientific papers on their conditions, real or imagined, the job of a doctor would be easier

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

#66

Post by gtirloni »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #44
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.

It's a bit of a conundrum; on the one side, the NHS and (in a different area) MDN are better, more authoritative, etc sources, so Google should promote those. On the other, this would mean that Google can no longer cite neutrality or hide behind "the algorithm", as has been their legal defense against a ton of lawsuits where the suers said one websites should go higher or lower in the rankings.

If it's a human curating content or an algorithm doing so, I don't see how that helps Google on a lawsuit. Unless they blame sentience.

The best algorithms adapt to feedback. Surely Google's own algorithm can accept Google's feedback to adjust for flaws in it.

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

#67

Post by aabajian »

I'm an interventional radiology resident near the end of my training. I think Google needs to index the clinician-facing side of UpToDate. It can't right now because it's paywalled.

For those unfamiliar with UpToDate, it is considered the #1 online reference for evidence-based medicine. What they do is write articles that summarize research articles from each domain. They have much more content than this, but it's the expert-summaries that make it a "killer app" for clinicians. We simply don't have time to read all the latest research.

Also, UpToDate is the #1 most expensive subscription that most academic universities pay for (e.g. in terms of journal subscriptions).

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

#69

Post by pwinnski »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #24

> Why can't I see the percent of people who experience a particular side effect? Is that a US thing? Because I’m looking at the small-print paper thingie that came ( has to come) with a moderately dramatic prescription drug, and it has: “Side effects: very frequent ( ≥ 10%): ... frequent ( ≥ 1% and infrequent ( ≥ 0.1% and rare ( ≥ 0.01% and very rare ( The following side effects were observed after this drug was rele…

This information is absolutely available, just not on WebMD!

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

#70

Post by mbreese »

BurningFrog wrote: post #11
oneplane wrote: post #5

If only there was a profession where knowledge, experience and continuous development are used to provide advice and care for individuals who may not have specialised in that same area of expertise.

I assume medical websites are somehow kept vague in order to steer us to pay these highly regulated professionals a fee for a visit.

I’d assume that they are kept vague so that users keep browsing the website and never quite get an answer. WebMD doesn’t benefit if you actually make it to a doctor to look at that sketchy mole.
Post reply on HN