Dr. Google
The Good:
Eighty-six percent of doctors say they now regularly use the Internet on the job. Of that group, the majority start at Google, which they use as a springboard to look for general information about diseases and drugs.
The Bad:
In a 2006 study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers had physicians read the histories of 26 tricky cases published in the New England Journal of Medicine and enter search terms into Google to see if they could make the diagnosis. They nailed it 58% of the time. Not bad, but not much better than the flip of a coin, either…
The Ugly:
Researchers also found that Google Scholar brings older articles to the top of the results. This is fine if you want a history lesson but problematic if you’re looking for cutting-edge clinical data. (It turns out Google Scholar places more weight on studies that are cited more, regardless of their validity.)
Plus, the researchers concluded, users often don’t search more than five pages to answer a question, leaving knowledge susceptible to the most popular articles, not necessarily the best.
Full article on the growing number of physicians using Google to educate themselves.
There was an article posted in the Health Business Blog awhile back about “what if Google knows you have cancer before you do?” The article explained how marketers could use Google search terms to target advertising for medical treatments for conditions you might have. For instance, if you Google symptoms associated with cancer, the banner ad might pop up an ad for a drug to treat the side-effects of chemo.
Surely Google will fix this. I’m thinking that in a few years, Google will be the one leading the EMR and telemedicine charge.
There are companies that provide diagnosis decision-support software. DSHI even has a free one on the Web called http://www.freemd.com.
As an experiment I entered my (late) father’s symptoms and biographical information. The virtual doctor returned a possible diagnosis of “aortic thoracic dissection” — which is the condition my father actually had.
The web site further recommend “see a doctor now.”
“The emergency room is the appropriate place for you to go for care because it is best equipped to treat your condition.”
“Consider calling an ambulance.”
One wonders why there isn’t a search engine that specializes in medical care and is superior to Google?
Nice scare article. How often are “cutting edge” clinical results relevant to the kinds of searches people are doing? Why would an expert consult Google for a tricky case? There are more specialized information collections out there. Plus, the summary specifically says that the physicians are using Google to look for general information, not specific information.
Goodman’s reply that the 58% correct diagnosis figure isn’t much better than a coin flip tells you to not take this guy seriously. I don’t know many people on the planet that think a 16% improvement
is minor Johnny boy.