CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

IN BRIEF

REVIEWS

TUTORIAL

VIEWS & POSITIONS

EVENTS DIARY

LETTERS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Issue 2, September 1997

ISSN 1368-1591

Medical Matrix Code of Conduct

Medical Matrix acknowledges Internet medical information providers that strive to provide quality content while adhering to the high standards of traditional medical publication. The criteria for a resource's selection for Medical Matrix includes its utility for point-of-care clinical application, quality, currency, and unrestricted access. Internet medical information providers who display our emblem support a goal of high quality exchanges of evidence-based, well-supported, peer-critiqued information to improve patient care worldwide.

It is our hope that, in the future, a consensus standard for appropriate Internet health and medicine publication will be enforced by appropriate peer or government organizations. It is toward this end that we set forth the following principles for Internet medical publication.

Peer review

Medical Web authors encourage expert review and editorial oversight of their content. This oversight helps Web authors evaluate whether their information is accurate and significant. Provision is made for feedback to the authors and, when possible, this exchange is made available in a public forum.

Hierarchical knowledge

Medical Web authors appreciate the esteemed journals, institutions, and scientific methods that have traditionally provided a calibration of excellence in medical research and clinical practice. They recognize them through appropriate citations, references, and hyperlinks.

Authority

Medical Web authors acknowledge that experiments, case controlled studies, clinical experience, and expert opinion are the appropriate ways to evaluate the benefit or risk of therapies. Statistical significance, randomization, and verifiability are critical measures of scientific work. Medical information providers display credentials that help users understand the quality of their scientific training. They acknowledge that focusing collective knowledge on a problem and providing citations and references lends greater authority to a document.

Presentation and currency

In the virtual environment it is acknowledged that the audience may lose the usual markers to evaluate the authorship, origination date, or responsible parties for a document. Medical Web authors endeavor to keep documents current, display origination dates, and use appropriate labeling so that users can make reliable associations with identifiable institutions.

Legal prohibitions against remote treatment

Medical Web authors recognize that the prescription of medical therapy in the absence of a bona fide physician-patient relationship or telemedicine setting is improper and may be illegal. Further, it is generally inappropriate to diagnose or treat in a virtual environment because the medium can give a false impression of clinical circumstances.

Conflicts of interest

Medical Web authors make a clear distinction between advertizements for products and balanced scientific studies. Commercial support for the Web site must be clearly identified. Significant adverse reactions, alternative approaches, and inappropriate uses are offered. It is acknowledged that misrepresentations of science to support sales of a product are inappropriate and may be fraudulent.

Copyright and intellectual property

Medical Web authors do not copy others' content as their own and do not frame the content of remote web pages for commercial benefit. The origin of full content or excerpted sources of information is provided. Links to sites with limited original content, derivative content, sound-alike names, or overly-impressive names are avoided.

Internet technology

Medical Web authors acknowledge that the Internet provides a unique and important environment to work collegially to improve patient care. The decentralization inherent in the Internet presents opportunities to develop innovative ways to navigate the clinical knowledge information space. The Web authors attempt to provide hyperlinks to related knowledge on remote pages or to MEDLINE.

Disabled

Medical Web authors attempt to make their Web sites accessible to disabled users.

Privacy

Medical Web authors reveal if information is collected on visitors to their Web site and whether that information will be retained or forwarded for specific purposes.

Distribution of the Medical Matrix Code of Conduct

Mhese principles are intended to stimulate discussion among medical professionals in the Net community. The intent is to contribute to discussions of health quality on the Internet that are taking place at many sites. The Medical Matrix Code will evolve with time. All comments about the Medical Matrix Code of Conduct can be placed on the Medical Matrix Forums.

Gary Malet DO
Informatics Fellow
Oregon Health Sciences University, USA

Society for the Internet in Medicine

Comments to: simq@cybertas.demon.co.uk

Copyright © 1997 Society for the Internet in Medicine. All rights reserved.
Date: September 21, 1997
Document URL: http://www.cybertas.demon.co.uk/simq/issue2/views.html