Long Beach Community Medical Center in California keeps its medical records on an intranet. Patients can enroll in one of those HMOs, and even register for a hospital visit, on-line. And Healtheon, a 1996 start-up company led by Netscape founder Jim Clark, now promises to expand and institutionalize these advances, and make them a universal feature of American medicine. Using Internet and Web technology, Healtheon intends to create a standard consumer platform for all health-care related communications and transactions. Check your computer.
Health care is ultimately about more than just money and convenience, of course.
It is about relieving pain and healing the sick. Patients profit most from the Internet's medical revolution. It has long been a truism of medicine that the healthiest patient is a well-informed patient. In the Age of the Internet, for the first time in history, better health is becoming a universal possibility. Although we endeavor to provide accurate and timely information, there can be no guarantee that such information is accurate as of the date it is received or that it will continue to be accurate in the future.