http://www.pediatriconcall.com/fordoctor/diseasesandcondition/PEDIATRIC_EMERGENCIES/PEDIATRIC_EMERGENCY.asp
This is the site for the 2nd critique for my online community on Pediatric Emergencies.
1. Content: The content of this site is quite broad. At the left hand side are tabs for diagnoses, grand rounds, cases, discussion, etc. In the middle of the page is Pediatric Emergency News. This includes new topics, cases and more diagnoses. To the right of the page is a column titled "Diseases" which includes numerous pediatric diseases and conditions. At the top is a "Doctor's corner, Parent's corner, and Child's corner." Also included is a vaccine reminder, poll, news, search box, peds tools and medical tools. The information seems very informative and complete.
2. Design: The design is not fancy. Each section is neatly divided off and things don't run together. Things are uniform and not too "busy."
3. Disclosure: The site is titled "Pediatric Oncall: Child Health Care." The site is copyrighted to the same company "Pediatric Oncall" There is a disclaimer at the bottom stating that the information is provided by medical, paramedical, and health providers voluntarily and is only meant for information purposes. The site does not guarantee accuracy or authenticity. This statement makes me a little leary of using this information in my online community.
4. Currency: The site is copyrighted 2000-2008. I do not see a date that shows how often the site is updated.
5. Authority: As mentioned in the disclosure section, the site only gives that the information is provided by "Pediatric Oncall." It does not show who is part of that group or allow me to access topic information without logging in.
6. Ease of Use: The site seems easy to use however, one has to have a username and password to access information.
7. Accessibility: The site requires one to login to use it. I attempted to create a login to access the site however in doing so it requested a "Doctor's Registration Number." Since I do not have this I was not able to login.
8. Intended Audience: Because of the registration requirements it appears this site is aimed at doctors/other practitioners with a registration number.
9. Contact: When I found the contact information I was suprised to find the contact phone number and address are located in Mumbai.
10. User Support: I do not see any type of help menu for user support on the site.
In summary, I do not think I will be using this site for several reasons. (1) I do not know who the authors are. (2) The contact information is in Mumbai, the healthcare information in that country is likely different from ours. (3) One cannot use the site without having a registration number. (4) I do not know how current the information is because there is no date.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Agree completely. It was interesting, though. Did you notice that you could upload some keywords into the search and then you could get a diagnosis? That is a little scary, but in a third world country with many rural villages, I could see where this could be useful. Also, there seemed to be a pretty active blog with discussion.
ReplyDelete