3-2: Unrestricted Web Publishing

Evaluating the validity of information accessed online is important today because in a time where anyone has the ability to post information on the web, credibility must come into question.  Consumers must ask questions regarding whether the author has any expertise in the area he or she is writing about, what sources he or she is utilizing, and be able to identify whether any bias may be involved.  It is all well and good for a doctor to post on blogs and websites about a new miracle cure for weight loss, but if that doctor is not board-certified or has any experience beyond perhaps a medical degree obtained from a school with a less than stellar reputation, and the claims are not supported by any kind of research but merely a few anecdotal success stories that may or may not have been bought and paid for, the likelihood of those claims having any real sustainability are pretty small. 

For this exercise, I accessed an article from the New York Times website titled “House calls are making a comeback” by Milt Freudenheim, published online on April 19, 2014.  This article details the rise in the use of palliative care to treat those with chronic conditions that are not necessarily better addressed within a hospital setting.  Freudenheim has been the Times’ health care reporter for quite a while, since 1993, based on a Google search I did, and has been with the Times since 1979, based on his LinkedIn profile, so while he is not offering medical opinion, I believe his years of experience reporting on issues within the health care sector makes him a reliable source. 

Within the article, Freudenheim utilizes not only the experiences of patients who have utilized palliative care services, but also physicians who head the palliative care services departments of various well-regarded hospital systems throughout the country.  Palliative care is often confused with end of life or hospice care, a misconception that Freudenheim attempts to rectify within his article as he details the holistic approach to not only making and keeping patients comfortable and free from pain, but also attending to their mental well-being.  The article links to a study, completed in 2007, which tracks the level of satisfaction patients with terminal illnesses experienced with the use of palliative care services.  Today, doctors and health care organizations are using this model to expand the scope of service to cover patients who would benefit from such high touch care without the need to be in a hospital setting.  Within the palliative care spectrum, physicians and care managers work with primary care physicians and specialists including mental health specialists to manage the overall care of the patient to ensure that the quality of life is the highest possible.   All of this is done with the intended goal of not only caring for the patient, but lessening hospital re-admittance issues that can be so prevalent with patients with chronic conditions such as heart disease. 

With the passage and subsequent implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), there was much rhetoric surrounding what some perceived to be “death panels” within the bill, and a great deal of attention was paid to such claims.  However, under the ACA, Accountable Care Organizations, or ACOs, which are a by-product of the law, offer services such as palliative care, as a way to serve the needs of the patient and help to lower the health care costs associated with hospital stays.  While ACOs are an added level between the patient and their physicians, serving in a more administrative role, they hardly sounds like the supposed “death panels” that were being touted by those who opposed the ACA as a body of bureaucrats that would decide which patients would receive care and which would not, thus determining who would live and who would die.   As the process moves further along, articles such as this can only help to dispel the great deal of myth and misinformation that continues to surround this legislation even as more milestones toward its full implementation are passed.   However, as with all online resources, as Montecino states, “it is imperative for users of the Web to develop a critical eye to evaluate the credibility of Internet information” (1998). 

Freudenheim, M. (2014, April 19). House calls are making a comeback. Nytimes.com. Retrieved April 20, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/business/house-calls-are-making-a-comeback.html?ref=us

Montecino, V. (1998, August). Helpful hints to help you evaluate the credibility of web resources. Retrieved April 2014, from http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm