Technologies for Health and Well-being

Searching for health information is one of the main Internet activities. Harris Interactive last survey estimates that over 117 million of U..S adults looked for health information in 2005, which means over 75% of population with internet access. In Spain, this percentage decreases to 28 % (INE 2005). The Networks huge formation possibilities join each other with a new health care attention model, where information access is one of the main activities that gives patients possibilities to take their own decisions about their health. In the same way, new management models recognize preventive activities as highly cost-efective, and these interventions are also based on sanitary information and education as changing gears towards more healthy habits and preventive philosophy inclusion in all areas of human activities. Nevertheless, the Internet sanitary information has serious problems. It is estimated that there are more than 4 billion web pages with medical contents and this number is increasing every year. More than half of those pages do not match minimum quality requirements like author or sources identification, date, or easy consultation to discuss this information with the doctor. On the other hand, a serious lack of contents is found that matches the patients ’ needs. When patients have access to professionally-oriented information, with no criteria or filter, usually more problems and fears appear than the ones this information solves. This is due to the fact that the patient does not have the needed tools or knowledge to understand and comprehend the information if it is not given in an adequate environment With all this controversy, it is indispensable to build tools that offer professionals the possibility to access and prescribe trustful sites with quality health information. In the present article we tried to approach the phenomenon of the access online to the sanitary information on the part of the citizens, its importance and utility, but also the problems which one faces and the possible solutions to consider