Health care economics 26. These sources can be accessed through commercial online services such as Prodigy, CompuServe, and America Online, or via the Internet, the largest worldwide computer network. Anyone with a computer, a modem, and appropriate software can explore this wealth of information. Students often can do so, free of charge, through computers at their school. Computer terminals with free Internet access are also available at some public libraries.
Health information is available in several electronic formats.
Online databases can be searched by keyword. It is the world's largest such database. In May 1996 it contained about eight million references published since 1966 and was adding about 10,000 new ones per week. Several drug companies are advertising with Web pages, one of which offers a list of recommended physicians and a discount coupon. The Internet has no central index, but the World Wide Web offers special pages, called search engines, that index large portions of the Net.