INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

Information Communication Technology

Table of Contents

Introduction3

WebMD4

Researching Medications Online4

Communicating with Doctors Online5

Opportunities for the WebMD in Healthcare5

Ordering Prescriptions Online6

Disadvantages of WebMD Health Care8

Conclusion11

Information Communication Technology

Introduction

The e-health has become a key contributor to health care industry, from researching personal health issues to asking a doctor for advice.

At present, there is a lot of internet websites that can utilized in order to gain health related information. Everything from researching as well as placing orders for prescription medications, to learning regarding disease, or even having a conversation online with trained medical doctors can be now done by the internet.

The method of delivering health care has altered dramatically because of building of hospitals, developments in the field of surgery, and the improvement in the internet. In the past 10 years there has been a major shift in the Health Care industry due to the rise of internet health care services (Barnes etal 2003).

Before the internet, if health problems were to arise in an individual, he/she was generally taken care of in the doctor's office or by home remedies. If any questions were to arise about the health of yourself or others, the expertise of a doctor or nurse was generally needed.

WebMD

TheWebMD health website is a website that has been designed to answer the questions about anything from medications to illnesses and can easily be obtained in a matter of seconds. Also, being able to communicate with the doctors or order prescriptions online has proved to be a huge advantage. In the next few paragraphs, the advantages of WebMD services and its impact on the health care industry will be discussed.

Researching Medications Online

WebMD has been a huge advantage to the health care industry for many reasons, one being the use of the WebMD to research medications. WebMD that contain information on any thing from medications and their uses to finding out about diseases and their causes. Everything about a drug is listed from what illnesses the drug treats down to its structural formula. Studies show that 71.5% of people who used WebMD health care to do research felt more knowledgeable about their illness and the medications they were taking (Paasche-Orlow etal 2005).

Researching IllnessesWebMD.com may be utilized as an extremely resourceful web page to seek illnesses. Any question that the user has regarding an illness or disease is answered. This access to information is very good for people who do not understand their illness and its side effects. For instance, when a doctor informs the patient about their illness, many patients do not understand the doctor's terminology. With WebMD.com, the patient is able to do further research about their illness in words and phrases they can understand.

Communicating with Doctors Online

The WebMD is becoming an important alternative for patients and health care providers to share information with one another. The patient is now able to email or chat with the doctor about any questions they may have, as well as the doctor being able to inform the patient of any new medications or alternative medicine that will help ...