Health Care Issues

Sites about health-related public policy and the provision of health care plans and services.

Sub-headings:

Medical Insurance

Services that inform consumers about obtaining and selecting medical coverage.

Patient's Rights

Information about what patients or those undergoing treatment should expect from a physician, caregiver or treatment center.

Physicans and Hospitals

Assistance in finding a doctor or healthcare provider.

Resources in this category:

AMA Physician Select
http://webapps.ama-assn.org/doctorfinder/home.html?iwcf/iwcf...

"Provides information on virtually every licensed physician in the United States and its possessions, including more than 650,000 doctors of medicine (MD) and doctors of osteopathy or osteopathic medicine (DO). All physician credential data have been verified for accuracy and authenticated by accrediting agencies, medical schools, residency training programs, licensing and certifying boards, and other data sources." You can search by physician name or specialty.

The American Academy of Dermatology
http://www.aad.org/

"The American Academy of Dermatology...embodies excellence in patient care, education and research; adherence to ethical conduct; and responsiveness to its members and to the public." This site provides links regarding public and patient information, professional information and organizations, and press releases.

Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs
http://www.jhuccp.org/

Part of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, this site promotes worldwide health communication in the area of reproductive health. An online searchable database of over 450 reproductive health, population and development organizations with Internet resources. POPLINE's on-line searchable database of the most recent citations on population, family planning, and related health information. Full text of online publications on these topics.

The National Health Policy Forum (NHPF)
http://www.nhpf.org/

From the NHPF homepage: The National Health Policy Forum is a participant-driven, nonpartisan information exchange program that works to foster more informed government decision making.

NIH Consensus Development Program
http://consensus.nih.gov/

"The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Development Program is the premier health technology assessment and transfer program in American medicine. Under this program, NIH organizes major conferences that produce consensus statements resolving controversial issues in medicine important to health care providers, patients, and the general public. NIH Consensus Statements are disseminated widely to practitioners, health care policymakers, patients, the general public, and the media." Past Consensus Statements and Technology Assessment Statements can be viewed online, along with news and information on upcoming activities.

The Swedish Handicap Institute
http://www.hi.se/templates/Page____132.aspx

The Swedish Handicap Institute works to provide access to well-functioning assistive technology that will improve the quality of life for people with disabilities. It works to stimulate research, analyze needs and encourage the testing of assistive technology by providing information and training to professionals in such technology for different categories of disabilities.

World Health Organization Mediacentre
http://www.who.int/inf/

Provides "access to all the latest news, press releases, fact sheets, and multimedia content from the WHO," updated daily.

World Health Organization Statistical Information System
http://www.who.int/whosis/index.html

"The purpose of this WHOSIS website (WHO Statistical Information System) is to describe - and to the extent possible provide access to - statistical and epidemiological data and information presently available from the World Health Organization and elsewhere in electronic or other forms. Most WHO technical programmes make information available to the public. The WHOSIS allows the user to search by keywords through the entire WHO website, and globally throughout the WWW."