Editorial

Article Outline

• Who do we think we’re kidding?
• Disclosure
• References
• Copyright

Back to Article Outline

Who do we think we’re kidding? 

Three years ago, the editorial (Davis, 2004) entitled “Orthopaedic Informatics – help or hindrance” asserted that “Patients are increasingly acquiring health/illness knowledge through the Internet and are using it to help them make decisions about possible health interventions.” The editor went on to challenge readers to use the Internet to keep up-to-date – “When was the last time you accessed an orthopaedic or nursing web site to update your knowledge or explore and develop new areas of nursing practice?”

In the interval the tide of academic opinion has swung against the Internet with a substantial body of work investigating the quality of orthopaedic pages and finding them lacking. As a typical conclusion the authors of “Surfing for Scoliosis” (Mathur et al., 2005) stated that “The information about scoliosis on the Internet is of limited quality and poor information value” and “Based on our review, the physician must assume primary responsibility of educating and counselling their patients.” One could challenge the methodology of these studies as they use very simple search techniques, but the fact remains that many health care professionals reject the Internet as a legitimate source of information for themselves and their patients.

This is both wrong and wrong-headed. A focused search for professional grade information on scoliosis (textbook articles of known provenance, full text papers available for free on the internet and the abstracts of peer reviewed presentations to orthopaedic meetings) yielded nearly 350 pages. These have been posted on Orthopaedic Web Links (OWL): http://www.orthopaedicweblinks.com/OCOSH_Classification/Bone_Diseases/Spinal_Diseases/Spinal_Deformity/Scoliosis/index.html, the largest directory of orthopaedic information on the Internet. Twenty-nine patient education pages were also found and most of these had better coverage than those found by the earlier study (Mathur et al., 2005). It is not that good information is absent on the Internet; the problem is that finding it takes a modest amount of training and effort.

The wrong-headed part is to imagine that professional tut-tutting about the standard of information available to patients will have the slightest effect on the way in which patients seek information. We should learn from King Canute who actually got his feet wet in order to demonstrate to his courtiers that trying to stem the tide by royal decree was futile. The Internet is too potent to be ignored or discounted; instead we should learn searching skills, find out what is available, improve it (or write it up ourselves if need be) and pass on our conclusions to our patients.

One “searching skill” can be passed on in a single sentence. If you visit OWL you will find it has a section on Orthopaedic Nursing Topics http://www.orthopaedicweblinks.com/Orthopaedic_Nursing/Orthopaedic_Nursing_Topics/index.html with over 300 web pages listed. OWL is set up as a clearing house for orthopaedic information on the Internet. It is easy to add sites to the database and the editors encourage you to research your favourite areas of interest and post the results on OWL. There is certainly too much high quality information on the Internet for any one individual to find, so the best option is for everyone to share what he or she discovers.

Back to Article Outline

Disclosure 

J.F.M. Clough is the proprietor and one of the editors of Orthopaedic Web Links (OWL) www.orthopaedicweblinks.com.

Back to Article Outline

References 

1. Davis P. Orthopaedic informatics – help or hindrance?. J. Orth. Nurs. 2004;8(1):3
   • View In Article
2. Mathur, S., Shanti, N., Brkaric, M., Sood, V., Kubeck, J., Paulino, C., Merola. 2005. Surfing for Scoliosis Spine 30(23), 2695–2700. <http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/519357>.
   • View In Article
3. Orthopaedic Web Links (OWL) Scoliosis <http://www.orthopaedicweblinks.com/OCOSH_Classification/Bone_Diseases/Spinal_Diseases/Spinal_Deformity/Scoliosis/index.html>.
   • View In Article
4. Orthopaedic Web Links (OWL) Orthopaedic Nursing Topics <http://www.orthopaedicweblinks.com/Orthopaedic_Nursing/Orthopaedic_Nursing_Topics/index.html>.
   • View In Article