We announced today that the Healthcare 100 now includes more than 1,000 health and medical blogs submitted by bloggers worldwide.
For those of you not familiar with the Healthcare 100, it is a directory, search engine and ranking system designed to assist individuals who are seeking health information from blogs.
Since we started the Healthcare 100 in June 2007 with just over 100 blogs, hundreds of health and medical bloggers have submitted their blogs to our directory, turning it into one of the Web’s go-to resources for health-related content. Surpassing 1,000 member blogs is a milestone not just for us, but for the community of health bloggers.
One reason I created the Healthcare 100 was to help consumers gain confidence in the value and reliability of health and medical blogs. As old-timers like me may recall, health blogs were once viewed as questionable sources of information by many people. Health professionals and the media were skeptical, and consumers weren’t sure whether they could believe the health news and information they found.
By developing “power rankings” that show the relative influence of a wide range of health blogs using data from Google, Yahoo, Technorati, Alexa and other sources, we created a tool that has helped consumers identify worthwhile content they can trust.
While attending the January health blogger summit at Consumer Reports, it really struck me just how far the health and medical blogosphere has come in less than two years.
The mainstream media has now fully embraced the health blogosphere, a fact that is evident in reviewing the Healthcare 100 today. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal currently manage two of the top blogs in our rankings. When we started the Healthcare 100, few traditional journalists could be found anywhere on the list.
What’s great about this, as demonstrated at the Consumer Reports summit, is that journalists and bloggers, including doctors, patient advocates and others, are now coming together at the same table to discuss the issues and challenges facing our healthcare system. That’s good for all of us.
Earlier this year, I was privileged to participate in a health blogger summit convened by Consumer Reports at its New York headquarters. One of the topics discussed at the event — in fact, the one that generated the most controversy — was online health ratings systems.
Many in attendance — including doctors and consumer advocates — were supportive of online ratings, particularly in helping patients find a doctor. But others, most notably Avery Comarow, editor of “America’s Best Hospitals” for U.S. News & World Report, dismissed Web ratings as dangerous popularity contests. Avery made the point that online physician ratings were biased toward negative reviews and had little objective medical basis.
I agree with Avery that doctor ratings sites are far from perfect. But frankly, to dismiss them out of hand is just silly — or at least unrealistic. People use them because, increasingly, people need them.
Years ago, most people found a physician by asking their neighbors and friends for recommendations and they often stayed with their physician for many years. Today, because of health insurance plans, social mobility, and other factors, patients are seeking new methods for finding and vetting their doctors.
In addition to offering subjective reviews, physician-rating Web sites can help patients research whether a doctor is board-certified, their educational history, office hours, accepted insurance providers, and other information.
If you haven’t used a doctor ratings site before, here are a few that are worth checking out:
- AMA DoctorFinder
- RateMDs.com
- MDNationWide Physician Ratings
- Book Of Doctors
- HealthGrades.com
- Angie’s List > Health
Avery is right that patients who have had a bad experience are more likely to write about it on these sites than those who haven’t.
You should certainly keep this in mind, but I’m a firm believer in giving consumers as much information — and as many choices — as possible in making their healthcare decisions.
As part of our visit to Consumer Reports headquarters last month to participate in the health blogger summit, we had an opportunity to tour the famous Consumer Reports labs — where they seemingly test every product under the sun, from cameras to stereos, home-gym equipment to washers and dryers. They even have food testers who have to sit behind metal doors waiting for food to taste — so the aroma from the test kitchen doesn’t cloud their judgment!
Here are a few of my photos from the tour (you can view the full set on Flickr):
This is where they test the audio equipment. It’s very quiet — and totally soundproof. Sometimes, when groups of schoolchildren or Boy Scouts tour the facilities, the editors will invite them to come in here and scream at the top of their lungs (with the adults on the other side of the door, of course.)
This is where they test the washers and dryers. To test the washers’ performance on various stains, they use test strips featuring a sample of every kind of stain you can think of, which they import from Europe at a cost of $30 each. They go through 1,000 of these strips during comparative testing, so you can see that doing this right isn’t cheap.
A Consumer Reports editor stands in the test kitchen — in front of those metal doors I was telling you about (under the coffeemakers).
We tried our hand at food testing, comparing two brands of chocolate chip cookies. We decided that the brand pictured wasn’t chocolatey enough.
The photography testing lab.
They use this simulator (as well as actual humans) to test the aerobic equipment.
I’ve been a reader of Consumer Reports for most of my life, so it was a thrill to see where all those ratings I’ve relied on came from. I plan to write some more posts about the conference, but I was determined to get these lab pics up this week!
Have a great weekend.
We were fortunate to be invited to a health blogger summit coordinated last Thursday by Consumer Reports. The event — held at CR’s headquarters in Yonkers, New York — was an opportunity to meet with the publication’s editors as well as other health bloggers, and to discuss the future of social media and social networks as they relate to the public health.
The event’s 31 attendees were also treated to an intimate Q&A with Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, who is on the board of Consumers Union, which owns CR.
Here are some of my pics from the event, with captions beneath each image. Click the pics to enlarge.
Julie Deardorff of the Chicago Tribune moderates a panel on health ratings systems, featuring (left to right) Dr. John Santa of CR; Avery Comarow, who edits “America’s Best Hospitals” for U.S. News & World Report; and Kathy Ciccone of the Healthcare Association of New York State.
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark is interviewed by CR Health Online Editor Trisha Brandon.
Craig talks with Organized Wisdom founders Steven Krein and Unity Stoakes and Wall Street Journal editor Scott Hensley.
Craig and Cary!
I have some thoughts on the substance of the conference which I’ll save for later posts. Needless to say, it was a great experience and it hatched a number of ideas that I plan to apply to our blog and our business.
As readers of this blog know, Consumer Reports is one of our favorite publications. We love the fact that they don’t accept advertising — and thus are not influenced by the threats of sponsors they might criticize. It’s one reason we trust Consumer Reports — on issues ranging from choosing a car to buying prescription drugs from Canada — over virtually every other source of consumer information.
The Consumerist, meanwhile, is a great blog and, like Consumer Reports, has never been afraid to criticize the biggest companies in the world when they let their customers down. Unfortunately, one result of this is that it’s had trouble selling advertising at the rates its level of readership merits.
On Wednesday it was announced that Consumer Reports is buying The Consumerist — which sounds like a perfect fit for both parties. Consumer Reports will no longer accept advertising on The Consumerist site, so they don’t have to worry about that problem any more. And The Consumerist will (hopefully) introduce more young people to Consumer Reports’ subscriptions and paid offerings.
I’ve subscribed to Consumer Reports online for years, and I can tell you that the small subscription fee has paid for itself many times over by saving me money and (in some cases) major buyer’s remorse.
More details on the deal here.
Congrats to both parties. We’ll be reading!
Consumer Reports says buying prescription drugs from Canada can be a smart strategy for cost-conscious consumers. Here’s the magazine’s advice:
You can often save 25 percent or more [using mail-order pharmacies]. Buying brand-name medications from Canada can boost your mail-order savings, sometimes up to 50 percent. Generics, however, are cheaper in the U.S. And drugs bought in Canada will not count toward your Medicare Part D deductible.
While it’s illegal to buy drugs from foreign countries, including Canada, because of safety concerns, the FDA may refrain from taking legal action if you can provide your doctor’s name, address, and phone number, and confirm that the drugs are for personal use.
If you wish to explore this option, look for pharmacies with the Canadian International Pharmacy Association seal. Go to eDrugSearch.com, to get safe access to affordable medications from licensed online pharmacies, for the highest-rated sites.
We’d clarify that while some generics are cheaper through U.S. online pharmacies (which is one reason we include U.S. pharmacies in the eDrugSearch.com system), others are not.
As eDrugSearch.com members know, the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA) and PharmacyChecker.com are both friends of eDrugSearch.com. All eDrugSearch.com member pharmacies are required to have PharmacyChecker.com approval, and most also have the CIPA seal. You can learn more about our pharmacy approval process here.
About this Angie’s List Expert: Cary Byrd is the president and founder of eDrugSearch.com. Based in San Antonio, eDrugSearch.com is a free cost comparison engine that helps consumers get safe access to affordable medications and advocates licensed online pharmacies as a widely accepted alternative.
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