Medical information from 120 doctors now on-line

Iowa doctors will soon be getting a pad of “information prescriptions.” The goal of the National Institutes of Health initiative is to get accurate, up-to-date information to patients. 120 Iowa doctors will be participating in the project, referring patients to the MEDLINEplus.gov website. Dr. Whitney Addington of the American College of Physicians Foundation says every day, about six MILLION Americans go on-line to find health-related information. Addington says one of the problems physicians face is the dilemma of how to encourage patients to independently learn more about the health conditions from which they suffer, while at the same time making sure they’re getting information from reliable sources. Addington says that’s why MEDLINEplus.gov is so valuable. MEDLINEplus.gov offers free health information on 570 topics, without hawking any medications. The information on the website comes from the world’s largest medical library, the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. For example, the latest research and information about Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is now posted on the website. Senator Tom Harkin, a backer of the project, was handed the first “information prescription” this morning during a kickoff event staged at the State Library