Surgical informatics on the Internet: any improvement?
OBJECTIVE
The Internet is a popular, but ungoverned, source of medical information. This study tracked the change in performance of commonly available search engines and the quality of medical data therein over a four-year period.


METHODS
We compared the accuracy of information on a commonly performed surgical procedure (vasectomy) using six standard search engines in a four-year period and with two recently developed search engines. The top 25 ranked sites cited by each search engine were scored for description of the procedure, post-operative instructions, complications and unproven associations.


RESULTS
There was no improvement in quality of individual sites over the study period. Additionally, the hit rate of search engines remained poor with 27 sites cited (40%) in 2002 either irrelevant or unavailable.


CONCLUSIONS
Few useful sites with accurate information on surgical procedures are available on the Internet and simple search strategies fail to identify site quality or relevancy.


CONCLUSIONS
At present, the Internet cannot be recommended as a reliable resource for many aspects of health information for patients. The onus is on health-care providers to provide high quality sites and direct patients to these sources of reliable information
Murphy
J O
JO
Adelaide and Meath Hospital, incorporating the National Children's Hospital, Tallaght, Dublin 24, Ireland.
Sweeney
K J
KJ
O'Mahony
J C
JC
Johnston
S M
SM
Conlon
K
K
Keane
F B V
FB
Tierney
S
S
D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet / Q000592:standards*; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000592:standards*; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D011786:Quality Control; D014659:Vasectomy