title: Quality assurance and risk management in on-line medical discussion groups.
abstract: There are thousands of sites on the Internet and World Wide Web where health care professionals and lay people interact to share medical information and health concerns. The majority of these sites do not have procedures in place to assess the quality of the information supplied by the providers or lay people, nor do they have any formal risk management policies to respond to posted material that may reveal a potential risk situation. This paper describes the quality assurance and risk management procedures that have been developed for KP Online--the website for members of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc--and shares some preliminary findings based on these procedures.
authors.affiliation: Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc, Oakland, Calif., USA. alan.eshleman@kp.org
authors.forename: Alan M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Eshleman
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D006126:Group Processes; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services / Q000592:standards*; D020407:Internet / Q000592:standards*; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000592:standards; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D012308:Risk Management / Q000379:methods*; D014481:United States