The following web sites and reviews originally appeared in Hospital Quarterly. They are provided by noted Canadian healthcare writer Mike Moralis. Everything is going virtual, from corporations to healthcare, thanks to the convergence of computing and telecommunication. Computer-aided and robotic guided surgery are also in limited use. Some aspects of healthcare delivery, like images, lend themselves to digitization.
Pictures are often worth a thousand words or more.
These phenomenon are transforming healthcare for consumers and providers, as well as students and educators, although it is occurring at different rates. Not surprisingly, the websites that attract the most health consumer traffic are those that provide information about chronic conditions. One thing that is happening rapidly is that consumers have access to much the same information as physicians, and a lot more time and motivation to read the most current information. What impact this will have remains to be seen, but cunning physicians can use that fact to their advantage by giving patients credible sites to visit. The hospitals and physicians that do have websites are still using them mainly as passive billboards and not as interactive tools, which will be the next stage.