Web Alert
Using the Web to diagnose patients
When a colleague asked Ashraf Nashed, MD, FACEP, about a strange rash on a child, a Web site helped the two physicians to diagnose the patient. "He thought it might be staph scalded skin syndrome," says Nashed, CEO of MDChoice.com. "We did a search on MDchoice for scalded skin’ and selected photos’ from the drop-down list. We then returned several relevant images from around the Web that helped us better evaluate the patient."
At MDchoice.com, you can access information that may impact the way you treat a patient, test your knowledge with interactive cases, and even create your own Web site. Here are some of the features on the site:
• Physician-reviewed "point of care" information. The site’s content is reviewed by an editorial board of physician experts. A physician-reviewed "Ultra Search" medical search engine allows you to search for medical information on hundreds of sites. You can limit searches to peer-reviewed content, images, CME, or in-depth reviews. "Our search engine and Medline services give physicians instant access to millions of top-quality medical articles," says Nashed. "This provides them with information at the point of care."
• Journal Report. This feature allows you to select any number of medical journals and receive automatic e-mails listing the table of contents. "There are links to article abstracts directly in the e-mail," says Nashed, also an attending physician in the department of emergency medicine at Morristown (NJ) Memorial Hospital. "With over 6,000 journals to choose from, it’s a great way to keep up to date with the medical literature."
• Interactive cases. The site’s "Photo Rounds," "Cyber Patient Simulator," "Radiology Rounds," "Pediatric Radiology" and "ECG Rounds" are very popular, he notes. "These interactive cases are a fun way to test your knowledge on a regular basis," says Nashed.
You can even create your own Web site using the "Website builder." "This is an automatic, easy way to get an ED or medical group on-line in less than a half hour," Nashed says. He explains that users must register and fill in various forms to create the Web pages, which can be previewed throughout the process. You can provide background information and even upload electronic photos of the entire medical staff for posting on the Web site, he notes.
The service is completely free, says Nashed. "We hope to subsidize the cost through pharmaceutical company sponsorship," he adds.
Sources
For more information about MDchoice.com, contact:
• Ashraf Nashed, MD, FACEP, President and CEO, MDchoice.com, 68 E. Main St., Somerville, NJ 08876. Telephone: (908) 203-5200, Ext. 14. Fax: (908) 534-5469. E-mail: [email protected].
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