Medpedia Project Expands Platform to Include Q&A, News & Analysis and Alerts
New Tools for Sharing and Advancing Medical Knowledge
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) November 10, 2009
The Medpedia Project today announced the addition of three new services on the beta version of the technology platform for the worldwide health community: Medpedia Answers for asking and answering medical and health questions; Medpedia Alerts for displaying real-time medical and health news alerts; and Medpedia News & Analysis for sharing medical news and analysis. These free resources are available today at www. medpedia. com (http://www. medpedia. com/)
Medpedia Answers (http://www. medpedia. com/answers) collects questions and answers about health, medicine and the body. Each question is tagged with both MeSH and plain-English headings for better discovery. Each question is also pushed into relevant areas throughout the Medpedia Project such as patient communities and article pages. Questions and answers are for general information purposes only, not as a substitute for in-person evaluation or specific professional advice. Anyone with a profile on Medpedia can participate. The Medpedia Answers Top Contributors list (http://www. medpedia. com/answers/top-contributors) gives recognition to the most active contributors.
Medpedia Alerts (http://www. medpedia. com/alerts) is a platform for aggregating and distributing health and medical news alerts. Organizations with real time alerts simply plug their feed into the platform -- joining other feeds such as the CDC, the Red Cross and the American Heart Association – to attract more readers who can subscribe to custom aggregated alerts feeds for free. In addition, any member of the Medpedia community can submit an alert in the Medpedia Alert Stream, or submit a website or Twitter account to be integrated into the platform on an ongoing basis. Submissions to the Alerts platform are reviewed by the community and if approved, are included in the appropriate Alert categories.
Medpedia News & Analysis (http://www. medpedia. com/news_analysis) allows high-quality health and medical content sources to self organize by category and keywords on Medpedia, and then inter-link with Article pages and other parts of Medpedia. Sources reflect a wide range of professional, academic and scientific topics, and over 150 sources have added themselves and been accepted by the Medpedia community onto the News & Analysis platform. Content in the Medpedia News & Analysis section is not part of the (CC-BY-SA) (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) license of Medpedia and copyright is held soley by the author(s). Organizations and individuals who regularly publish medical and health content online are encouraged to submit their source to the News & Analysis section of Medpedia at http://www. medpedia. com/news_analysis (http://www. medpedia. com/news_analysis).
These three new interrelated tools are part of the Medpedia platform which provides medical professionals and organizations a central place to record their knowledge and receive national and international recognition and visibility for their expertise. Medpedia, which launched in February 2009, also includes a collaborative knowledge base, a Professional Network and Directory for health professionals and organizations, and Communities of Interest in which medical professionals and non-professionals can share information about conditions, treatments, lifestyle choices, etc. Since the announcement of The Medpedia Project in February 2009, thousands of people have become a part of the community and thousands of physicians, researchers, organizations and experts have begun contributing to the knowledge base.
While only physicians and Ph. D.s in a biomedical/health field can edit the Medpedia knowledge base directly, consumers have an important role to play. They can suggest changes to the Article pages, and they can participate in Communities, and they can ask and answer questions.
About The Medpedia Project
The Medpedia Project is a long-term, worldwide project to evolve a new model for sharing and advancing knowledge about health, medicine and the body among medical professionals and the general public. This model is founded on providing a free online technology platform that is: easy to understand, collaborative, interdisciplinary, transparent, and that elevates the best medical information on the Web. The result of this effort will be to transform how both medical professionals and the general public acquire information about health and connect with each other.
Harvard Medical School, the Stanford School of Medicine, The University of Michigan Medical School, the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, and health organizations around the world have collaborated with Medpedia. Many organizations have contributed seed content free of copyright restrictions. Other organizations, such as University of Michigan Medical School are encouraging members of their faculty to edit the Medpedia encyclopedia.
Other health and medical organizations that are supporting Medpedia. Medpedia. com, Inc. is funded and managed by Ooga Labs (www. oogalabs. com) a technology greenhouse in San Francisco.
Medpedia Disclaimer
The content on or accessible through Medpedia. com is for informational purposes only. Medpedia is not a substitute for professional advice or expert medical services from a qualified health care professional. Organizations associated with Medpedia are not responsible for the content that appears in the editable pages of Medpedia, which can contain content submitted by other health professionals or other persons, including those who may not be affiliated with these organizations.
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