Presented at the 1999 APIII Conference Return to 1999 Abstract Index
PROSTATEHEALTH.ORG: A RESOURCE FOR PATIENTS AND PROFESSIONALS
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Department of Pathology
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Susan Leeds
J. Huth, MD; S. Leeds, Q. Wang
Prostate cancer is the most frequently occurring non-skin cancer, representing 29% of all new cancer cases in American men. In 1998 alone, 185,000 new cases of prostate cancer were detected, and 39,200 men died from the disease. As an increasingly computer-literate population searches for answers, the result has been a tremendous upsurge of interest in prostate cancer sites on the World Wide Web.
The UPMC Pathology Department Web site has received a large share of this attention, drawing over 600,000 page views per month. Although the site was conceived for health professionals and medical students, a two-year study of web activity found that the majority of questions came from patients, their families, and a general public hungry for reliable, current medical information.
ProstateHealth.org is a new Web site dedicated to providing patients and professionals with accurate, clear and comprehensive information on this important men's health issue. There are a wealth of prostate cancer resources on the World Wide Web, with varying degrees of accuracy and reliability. A major goal of ProstateHealth.org is to be a clearinghouse for the best information the web has to offer, pointing users to the most reliable and useful resources. In addition, ProstateHealth.org will provide users with the tools to organize their research for storage and retrieval.
A unique feature of site is a service called Pathology Reports Explained. Pathology reports comprise 70% of a patient's electronic medical record and are involved in 70% of the major decisions that change the lives of patients. They provide the information critical to identifying when a patient moves from health into sickness, or from one stage of disease to another. However, this information is often presented in medical language difficult, if not impossible, for patients to understand. Pathology Reports Explained provides a patient-friendly context for these technical reports, presenting sample, prostate case studies written by and for health care professionals, in tandem with a lay language translation.
Future features of the site include Ask the Doctor, a moderated forum where patients can find answers to their prostate health questions from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's genitourinary specialists.
