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TEAC-Health--research-based recommendations for European certification of health telematics services
Abstract
Health Telematics services are now a major part of health care delivery, and of citizens' health behaviour, and will rapidly develop further in scope and significance. However, despite their pivotal position in care and treatment, they are unregulated--unlike all other aspects of health care services. This anomaly is potentially putting the citizen at risk, and also underpinning good clinical practice as clinicians are uncertain of the integrity of specific health telematics tools. The TEAC-Health project, funded by the European Commission, has studied the issues, and produced evidence-based recommendations.
An increasing number of people search for health information online. During the last 10 years various researchers have determined the requirements for an ideal consumer health information system. The aim of this study was to figure out, whether medical laymen can find a more accurate diagnosis for a given anamnesis via the developed prototype health information system than via ordinary internet search.
In a randomized controlled trial, the prototype information system was evaluated by the assessment of two sample cases. Participants had to determine the diagnosis of a patient with a headache via information found searching the web. A patient’s history sheet and a computer with internet access were provided to the participants and they were guided through the study by an especially designed study website. The intervention group used the prototype information system; the control group used common search engines and portals. The numbers of correct diagnoses in each group were compared.
A total of 140 (60/80) participants took part in two study sections. In the first case, which determined a common diagnosis, both groups did equally well. In the second section, which determined a less common and more complex case, the intervention group did significantly better (P=0.031) due to the tailored information supply.
Using medical expert systems in combination with a portal searching meta-search engine represents a feasible strategy to provide reliable patient-tailored information and can ultimately contribute to patient safety with respect to information found via the internet.
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