The New Source of Medical Information

We all know that Wikipedia has become an invaluable source of information for many topics. It offers quick, concise and mostly reliable information although there has been occasional mis-information disseminated.

A new website called Medpedia is the medical equivalent to Wikipedia. The primary difference besides the content is that posted information to the site is only accepted from fully licensed medical experts. This endeavor is being led by Harvard Medical School, UC Berkeley School of Public Health, Stanford School of Medicine and University of Michigan Medical School and will attempt to become the largest source of medical information.

Other organizations supporting and cooperating with the endeavor include the American College of Physicians (ACP), Oxford Health Alliance (OxHA), Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies, (FOCIS), European Federation of Neurological Associations (EFNA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Federal Drug Administration (FDA).

This collaborative medical encyclopedia is in its beginning stages but will ultimately be a free public site launched by the end of 2008. The site will have pages with information on each topic for public viewing, and a “technical” page for healthcare professionals with more clinical and scientific information. The content will be updated in real-time to stay up to date with the most recent discoveries.

If all goes well, it should be a very reliable and up to date source for medical information.