Comments on: Medpedia

By: Susannah Fox

Susannah Fox — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:57:09 +0000

Hi David,

You might be interested in the Medpedia discussion happening over at e-patients.net (James Currier, a Medpedia founder, stopped by last night to answer to some criticisms).

Medpedia: Who gets to say what info is reliable?
by e-Patient Dave
http://e-patients.net/archives/2009/02/medpedia-w...

By: Angela Simmen

Angela Simmen — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 02:35:34 +0000

Initially, Medpedia will be a resource for the general public. Over time, with 1000’s of clinicians and researchers on the site, discussing what should be on the main pages, Medpedia will also become a resource for medical professionals, health educators, and medical schools. We are confident that a large number of passionate people — some with medical credentials and some without credentials — can collaborate to produce something of very high quality. We also believe that the result of their work will do a better job of answering the general public’s questions than the most popular medical websites of today.

To increase quality over other wiki efforts, we approve each Contributor application, which provides a first round of quality management. Second, we built the site so that if the community comes to realize that a particular Contributor is of poor quality, we can easily delete most of their contributions and flag for review all their contributions that we can’t easily delete. And as Wikipedia has shown, the quality of articles generally increases with the number of contributors and readers. Given enough people looking at the content, errors will be shallow and quickly corrected.

After watching Google, Wikipedia, and Facebook succeed with their bottoms-up, wisdom of the crowds approach, we have faith in distributed communities of people working together and solving complex problems. We will use all those approaches as we understand them today, and learn together as we go, making improvements day after day, year after year. In 5 years, we hope to have created a resource used by millions of people in ways we can’t imagine today.

For any of your readers interested in helping, we hope you’ll join us at Medpedia.com.

By: David Rothman

David Rothman — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:38:21 +0000

Hi Angela-

So does Medpedia seek to be a resource for healthcare consumers or for healthcare professionals?

Are you confident that passion is a sufficient qualification to offer healthcare advice to others?

Thanks!

-David

By: Angela Simmen

Angela Simmen — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:24:38 +0000

David,

Thanks for the post about Medpedia. Your point about applications is a good one.

Anyone with medical and health knowledge is encouraged to apply to become a Contributor. It is not a requirement that you have medical credentials; however, it is important that you are passionate and knowledgeable about at least one topic related to medicine, health and the body. In order for your application to be accepted, you need to thoroughly fill out all the profile fields, and provide a photo of yourself.

We added this to the FAQs, and we will make it more prominent on the site.

Thanks again,
Angela