Five most important contributions:

Eysenbach G, Powell J, Kuss O, Sa ER. Empirical studies assessing the quality of health information for consumers on the World Wide Web: A systematic review.
JAMA 2002; 287: 2691-2700

• first systematic review and meta-analysis synthesizing the current evidence on quality of health information on the web
• selected by JAMA to be published with an accompanying editorial
• selected by JAMA to be included in the AMA press release, and covered globally in lay media including Reuters Health News.

Eysenbach G, Köhler C. How do consumers search for and appraise health information on the World-Wide-Web? Qualitative study using focus groups, usability tests and in-depth interviews
BMJ 2002; 324: 573-577 

• first published study conducted in a usability lab to observe how people search the web for health information
• paper nominated for the 2002 Diana Forsythe Award, awarded by American Medical Informatics Association’s (AMIA's) People & Organizational Issues Working Group, is for the best paper (journal or AMIA Symposium) published over the last year (Spring 2001-Spring 2002) at the intersection of medical informatics and social science.

 Eysenbach G, Diepgen TL: Responses to unsolicited patient e-mail requests for medical advice on the World Wide Web.  JAMA. 1998;280:1333-1335.

 Eysenbach G, Diepgen TL. Evaluation of Cyberdocs.  Lancet 1998; 352 (9139): 1526

• the JAMA 1998 and Lancet 1998 studies were the first published studies highlighting the perils and pitfalls of electronic patient-physician communication via email
• JAMA study was accompanied by an editorial 'On Call and On-line: Sociohistorical, Legal and Ethical Implications of E-mail for the Patient-Physician Relationship' by Alissa Spielberg
• JAMA and Lancet studies together led to more than 50 press stories, 15 radio interviews, and more than 10 TV broadcasts
• influenced and contributed to subsequent policy papers and guidelines around the issue of using email in the clinical setting, such as ‘e-Risk for Providers: Understanding and Mitigating Provider Risk Associate With On-Line Patient Interaction’ (Medem Inc.), AMA, GMC, BMA, GPC, RCGP and various medical indemnity organisations drafted guidance for patients and clinicians on patient:doctor e-consultation.

V. Eysenbach G, Diepgen TL: Towards quality management of medical information on the internet: evaluation, labelling, and filtering of information. BMJ 1998;317:1496-1500

• selected by the British Medical Journal to be accompanied by an editorial
• influential and highly cited article leading the thinking on how to deal with quality issues on the web
• cited for example in the American Medical Association guidelines governing editorial content, advertising, sponsorship, privacy and confidentiality and secure electronic commerce for its Web sites
• ideas presented in this paper led to the world-wide first major projects funded by the European Union and coordinated by Dr Eysenbach, addressing the quality of health information on the web: MedCERTAIN and MedCIRCLE, two large international semantic web projects funded by the European Commission (1999-2003). Results of the MedCERTAIN and MedCIRCLE projects had in turn a major policy impact (see for example: Commission of the European Communities.
  eEurope 2002: Quality Criteria for Health related Websites. Journal of Medical Internet Research 2002;4(3):e15 <URL:http://www.jmir.org/2002/3/e15/>

Contact information:

Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto; Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
Toronto General Hospital

telephone (+1) 416-340-4800 Ext. 6427|
fax (+1) 416-340-3595
geysenba@uhnres.utoronto.ca