Rx isn't just medication anymore

The power of the prescription pad is harnessed to the Internet with the hope that educated patients can be powerful players in their own care.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. May 24/31, 2004.

Washington -- Officially directing patients to a reputable Web site to research a disease or condition is an idea whose time has come, according to physicians who have participated in pilot projects for Prescriptions for Information.

The program, a joint effort of the National Library of Medicine and the American College of Physicians Foundation, encourages physicians to write prescriptions for a trustworthy, commercial-free Web site packed full of free information -- the NLM's MedlinePlus.

Patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease constitute a large part of primary care physicians' practices, and doctors believe that educating them on the management of their disease is about as important for effective treatment as is medication. But ever-briefer office visits leave no time for this exercise.

Physicians say patients have responded positively to the new program and that it encourages them to become part of the treatment team.

When Jacqueline W. Fincher, MD, an internist in Thomson, Ga., who has participated in the program, hands patients a signed prescription directing them to research their disease or condition on MedlinePlus, she tells them, only half joking, "Here's your homework. When you come back we'll have a quiz. I want to know what you've learned."

She recently told a patient with lupus: "At the end of six months, you need to know more about this disease than I do, because you're going to live with it for the rest of your life."