Medical Counseling by the Internet |
Sun Mi
Yoo, Jeong Hee
Park, Yoo Seock
Cheong, Eal Whan
Park, Sang Hoon
Lee, Sun Ryoung
Park |
1Department of Family Medicine, Dankook University, College of Medicine, Korea. 2Department of Biomedical Engineering, Dankook University, College of Medicine, Korea. 3Virtual I/O System, Inc, Korea. |
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Abstract |
Recent progress in medical informatics enable to use various medical regardless of time or place, to make a diagnostic and therapeutic plan, with increasing need about health of general population. There are many homepages on the web, which provide medical common senses, hospital information. and medical counseling on the web. Virtual Hospital, which is comprehensive medical information system on the web, has medical counseling program with various health information such as self-diagnosis, first-aid treatment information, drug information, Q and A, and so on. The aim of this study is to examine the content and purpose of medical counseling on the web. The subjects consisted of 277 counsels which visited 'Medical Counseling' in the Virtual Hospital for December 1996 through May 1997. Many questioners wanted to consult about their symptoms, to know prevention and treatment strategies, and to know specific medical knowledge. The most common questions are as follows: general and unspecified, digestive, musculoskeletal, and skin problems. These findings suggest medical counseling may be used to supplement the lack of direct medical Interviews with doctors. |
Key Words:
Internet, Medical counseling, Computer communication network |
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