Internet-Based Patient Education - Essay Example

Meeting the Challenges and Embracing the Opportunities of Internet-based Patient Education by Doctors Unit The development in the digital and online technologies has continued to revolutionize the health sector. As a result of increased and widespread use of internet, there has been explosion of knowledge. Every kind of information can be found at a click of a button. This has made patients to get an extra mile of seeking information even before getting to see the doctor. Despite practice having some advantages, this practice exhibits a number of disadvantages. One of the major concerns is the temptation by the patient to self-diagnose, hence putting their life in danger. However, doctors are supposed to monitor any awareness by the patients and discourage the potential risks that are associated with informed patients. Patients should be discouraged from sourcing information from the internet and acting upon it without consulting a medical practitioner. Therefore, though information is very beneficial to the patients, they should be discouraged from getting information from the internet and using it for self-diagnosis. Seeking information from the internet can be either advantageous or disadvantageous depending on the context of use. The motivation of seeking disease-related information from the internet sources predisposes an individual to insurmountable information, some of which may be true while others presents people’s opinions that are not necessarily be compliant with the medical practitioners regulations and treatment of diseases. Though the information is very vital, the disadvantages are likely to outweigh the advantages. This becomes a great challenge to the doctors that are likely to be presented with cases of misdiagnosis. Sometimes complications are likely to arise. The doctors take the oath that gives them the mandate to protect life. Therefore, they have the discretion of providing all the necessary support for the patient to remain healthy. Internet information can cause a patient to misdiagnose or to have a wrong perception of the disease that they are suffering from. It is possible for the doctors to meet this challenge, let us turn to some of the interventions that can be made to meet the challenge of patient-education. One of the ways in which doctors can meet the challenge of internet based patient awareness is through providing adequate advice to patients. Doctors are knowledgeable and have experience that helps them to understand diseases more that nonprofessionals that source for information from a variety of sources. It is the mandate of the doctors to provide advisory to the patients by discouraging self-diagnosis even at the time that the patent is suffering from a simple illness. This can be done through media campaigns, through workshops, and hospitals, among other forums where patients interact with doctors for free advisory. Through this intervention, the doctors should be able to answer all the questions that arise from the patients. In addition, the patient should be made aware that the use of internet-based knowledge in is inadequate to fully help in diagnosis. Therefore, it should be discouraged by all means. Another aspect is that the doctor should be at a position of gauging a patient’s level of awareness before treatment. Some medical conditions are psychological, hence depends on the perception of the patient towards the prevailing condition. A patient that has acquired online information about a disease that they have, may provoke them to have a psychological status of a disease that they are not actually suffering from. In essence, the person may become very sickly and unable to understand the state of their condition. Cases of self-diagnosis can also result to uptake of the wrong medicine by a patient. Wrong diagnosis can result from lack of understanding from the patient that different diseases may have some similar symptoms, hence the need for a doctor to do a comprehensive analysis in order to understand the actual condition. When gauging the level of awareness that the patent has, the doctor should endeavor to clear all the misconceptions that had been created. Another way in which doctors can meet the challenge of internet-based education by patients is through making recommendations to the patents of the sites that they can be able to get helpful information. Some internet sites post unverified and hence false information. Throughout a worldwide doctors intervention, sites that provide reliable information should be specially endorsed so that patients find it easy to access them. This will ensure that the patients are exposed to the most truthful information. However, there should be a disclaimer that a medical practitioner is the best person to make the diagnosis, the site only provides information that is beneficial to learning and management of diseases. However, despite the demerits of internet based patient education, there are opportunities that doctors can use in order to prevent against prevalence of diseases as well as alleviation of disease symptoms. Firstly, for psychological and psychiatric conditions, the patient can be may to interact with knowledge and hence ends up being helpful to them. In this scenario, it is possible for the patient to diagnose himself or herself and hence ends up whole again. Another opportunity is in the prevention of diseases. There is a lot of money that is spent annually on curative interventions; such can be alleviated if the patients continue to harness information that is based on research. As a result, the patients are able to develop interventions that help them prevent against diseases that they could have succumbed to. The role of the doctor would be to encourage patients to acquire knowledge that will benefit them in understanding on preventive measures. Another opportunity is in the development of patient-doctor online platforms that would ensure that the doctor can get to provide online and instant information to the patients. This can help the patient question information obtained from the internet. Apart from making the patient aware, the doctor is also challenged to keep on advancing their knowledge in regards to providing the best answers to the patients. In conclusion, seeking medical advice from a doctor is the best intervention that a sick person should endeavor for. In order to have effectiveness for internet-educated patients, the doctors should be able to provide necessary information. This helps substantiate opinions from facts. Internet information can result to a patient’s misdiagnosis when the patient does not seek advice from a medical practitioner. However, internet based patient education can be beneficial when there is an online interaction with a doctors as well as for certain conditions such as psychological. Read More