Finding the best medical Web sites

The American College of Physicians published a useful article this month in ACP Hospitalist listing some of the most useful health Web sites that patients and medical professionals are now using to get health information.

Jessica Berthold's article, Smart surfing: Finding the best medical Websites, points out that "patients aren't the only ones doing the Web surfing. A 2006 article in Postgraduate Medical Journal found that 71% of health care professionals use the Internet regularly for medical or professional updating, and 63% recommend Web sites to patients. The issue for many physicians is not whether to use medical Web sites, but how to find the best ones."

We were happy to be included in the list of useful sites featured on the list patients are using including:

• WebMD Health  is an interactive site with information on more than 90 disease and lifestyle topics, and more than 140 message boards.

• Daily Strength  has support groups for people with more than 500 medical conditions.

• EverydayHEALTH is a general medical news site, with health calculators, polls and discussion boards.

• The HealthCentral Network  is a clearinghouse of community-focused Web sites sorted by specific conditions (e.g., MyDiabetesCentral.com, MyHeartCentral.com).

• OrganizedWisdom  selects and organizes user-generated health content from the Web.

• Revolution Health is a comprehensive, interactive site with articles, discussion boards, disease information and more than 125 consumer-friendly health tools.

We've put our own list together of useful resources our health guides use to find great health resources to create WisdomCards.  We are constantly adding to this list so feel free to send us suggestions.