14 DAY TRIAL // Diseases and medical conditions, health facilities and most prescribed drugs are some of the topics that Medpedia, the self-titled world's largest collaborative online encyclopedia of medicine and health, will focus on. Today, the team in charge of the project announced that the website had just been launched for a preview, with the content still to be added by the end of the year.
Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, the University of Michigan Medical School, along with some of the most famous health organizations worldwide, will contribute to the development of the encyclopedia. Only professionals will have the right to edit the information, so that people will be sure that what they read is accurate. The website will be divided in two: one part written in an accessible language, for all to understand, and the other, where specialists will have the opportunity to discuss using scientific terms.
The founders of the project also promise a multimedia content for the website. Texts will be supplemented with images, videos and audio files, to enable a better understanding of the symptoms of a disease or to see how a described medical resort really is. Over the next few years, estimations are that over 30,000 diseases and conditions, 10,000 drugs and thousands of medical procedures that might be of interest to people will be reviewed.
"Making high quality, unbiased medical information freely available to everyone via a collaborative, open and constantly evolving website has the potential to dramatically impact both public and individual health," says Dr. Henry Lowe, Senior Associate Dean of Information Resources and Technology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. "That's why we are supporting Medpedia." he explains, underscoring the influence the website will have over people's lives, both professionals and laymen.
As already noted, only accredited doctors or researchers will be able to edit or add information on Medpedia. "Becoming an Editor-Contributor to Medpedia will provide tens of thousands of medical professionals around the world the opportunity to make a difference in improving the health of our patients." says Dr. Joseph Martin, former Dean of both the Harvard and the UCSF Medical School, emphasizing the fact that the medical encyclopedia will indeed be a reliable tool.