A4:    Gems or garbage: how might family doctors assess the quality of medical information on the Internet?

Michael Kidd MBBS MD DCCH DipRACOG FRACGP. Professor and Head, Department of General Practice, The University of Sydney (Australia)

Target level: BEGINNERS AND INTERMEDIATES

The Internet provides family doctors and their patients with access to a wealth of material for professional education, clinical decision-making, patient education and support. The volume and variable quality of the medical and health-related material available on the Internet poses a challenge to family doctors. How do family doctors decide what information might be useful for their clinical practice? How do family doctors assist their patients to make best use of information available on the Internet? How do professional organisations assist family doctors in sorting through the gems and the garbage on the Internet?

International experts will lead this workshop on the use of the Internet as a tool for medical and patient education. Possible models developed by other organisations for assessing information quality will be reviewed and recommendations will be made on how well these might apply to family medicine. Participants will be invited to assist in the development of recommendations on how IMIA, its member organisations and all family doctors can best tackle the challenge of assessing the quality of medical information on the Internet.