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PUBLICATIONS InteliHealth, HMS Launch Revamped Consumer WebsiteThe InteliHealth website, which features consumer health information from HMS faculty members, has unveiled a major redesign including a new graphic look, easier navigation and searching, and a new section for chats and community boards. Over the past year, under the leadership of HMS instructor in medicine Howard LeWine, a core group of 13 physicians and a pharmacist, with more than 100 contributing editors from the HMS faculty, have guided the creation of a half million words of new content and reviewed almost two million words of existing content on the site. The redesign coincides with a collaborative effort by HMS and InteliHealth to enhance online health content by making it more patient-focused and interactive. The InteliHealth collaboration is part of the Medical School's Harvard Health Publications, led by professor of medicine Anthony Komaroff (see Focus, Aug. 11, 2000). The HMS group works with a team of editors, production managers, and technical staff based at InteliHealth's headquarters outside of Philadelphia. A wholly owned subsidiary of Aetna U.S. Healthcare, the site receives as many as one million unique visitors per month and provides links to selected content created by more than 150 health organizations, including the National Institutes of Health. The InteliHealth site features: Information about healthy lifestyles. Volumes of research over the past 50 years, much of it from HMS and HSPH, have demonstrated the importance of lifestyle in preventing or controlling major diseases. This information is being marshaled for use on the site, in part, from the Medical School's books, newsletters, and special health reports for consumers. Information about diseases. Information about the prevention, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of many diseases. Information about symptoms. "Symptom Scout," a group of interactive flow charts, helps users judge whether symptoms require evaluation by their doctor. Information about diagnostic tests. This section tells people about the 100 most common diagnostic tests, what they are, and what preparations may be required in advance. Ask the Expert.User-submitted questions answered by HMS faculty members. HMS commentaries. HMS faculty members comment on everything from medical myths to stem cells. Online health community. Live chats with HMS faculty and user community boards on health topics. Health news with HMS perspectives. Each day an HMS faculty member provides comments about what the major health stories mean for the general public. Recent updates to the site include: Colorectal cancer prevention area. Phase one of a preventive health initiative. Nutrition guide. Highlights the principles in HMS faculty member Walter Willett's book Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy. Childhood guide. Initially focused on well care for infants (0-11 months), but will eventually cover early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence (due in October). "For over 25 years, HMS has created high-quality health information for the general public through its newsletters, books, and special health reports," Komaroff said. "The Web really is the most powerful publishing medium since Gutenberg's press--it's not just hype--and HMS has an opportunity with InteliHealth to reach an audience vastly larger than we can reach with our print publications. It is a lot of work, and we have a long way to go, but we've made great progress in this first year." InteliHealth won the 1999 Webby Award for "best health site on the Internet," an honor seconded by Newsweek magazine, and the 2000 "People's Voice" Webby Award. The Oct. 8, 2001, U.S. News and World Report also praised the site, stating that InteliHealth "has raised the bar for Web health info." |
