New York Times Dated September

¶ … New York Times dated September 22, 2005 entitled 'To Find a Doctor, Mine the Data' and was written by Milt Freudenheim. The article explains why it has become extremely important in the Internet age to collect data about medical practitioners and have it available on the Internet. Since people have become more aware of the choices available to them and have only a certain amount to spend on healthcare, they want to be able to make economical health decisions- decisions that would stretch their dollar without hurting their health. For this reason, consumers prefer to look for ways in which they can be sure their dollar would be well-spent. Insurance companies understand this need very well and usually have a large comparative data available so their consumers can do research on their own and choose the best healthcare practitioner or hospitals.

Another reason why it is important to have this data available is because while money is a concern, even more serious is the concern about one's health and with hundreds of patients becoming victims to medical malpractice; everyone wants to make a wiser decision when it comes to choosing the hospital and doctors. Insurance companies and employers understand these concerns better than the healthcare system itself. This is why we see insurers trying to have a vast amount of searchable data available online while doctors and hospitals are not as interested in helping them out in their efforts. Still many insurance companies have managed to persuade doctors and hospitals to make critical data available such as number of patients treated, what is the doctor's primary focus, are their any malpractice lawsuits against a hospital etc.

This trend is likely to grow even more in coming years with insurance companies persuading federal agencies to play their part in this. Every consumer must know about the healthcare plan he chooses, the hospital he decides to go to and the medical practitioner he would receive treatment from in order to make the wisest choice based on their own needs and requirements. With lack of critical information such as patients' comments and surgical procedures undertaken by individuals, this data is still slightly primitive. While a wealth of information is available on around 4,000 hospitals around the country on Federal Department of Health and Human Services' Web site (hospitalcompare.hhs.gov), still there is a serious dearth of information on individual doctors. This gap must be filled in order to help consumers make the right choice. Similarly there is less information on pricing as well that tends to make research almost half-productive.