Over the next few years, Currier said, Medpedia plans to recruit thousands of health experts to create Web pages for more than 30,000 diseases and conditions, more than 10,000 prescription drugs, thousands of medical procedures and millions of medical facilities around the world.
That's a far cry from the 1,000 pages that Medpedia currently has. The task presents a significant challenge given the demands of the profession and the reluctance of some to embrace the Internet as an alternative means of helping patients and advancing scientific knowledge.
"I view this as a leading-edge way to do something I have wanted to do my whole life, which is help people have information so they can craft their own future," said Linda Hawes Clever, a UC San Francisco clinical professor who is advising Medpedia.
Although online tools can help patients take charge of their own care, reduce costs and prevent medical errors, they also carry risks. Wikipedia, which uses an army of volunteers writing on a variety of topics, has had its share of controversies concerning the reliability of its experts.
Currier hopes to avoid such problems by putting safeguards in place. Chief among them: Only licensed medical professionals and organizations in good standing who are rigorously screened will be approved to provide and edit information.
"One of the big problems with medical information on the Web is the qualifications of the people providing it," technology consultant Rob Enderle said. "The Web is not exactly a trusted place for medical information right now. A service that could provide a variety of credible medical information could be very useful."
Main topic pages will be easy for laypeople to understand. Professionals will discuss the topics in more clinical terms on technical pages.
Currier, an Internet industry veteran, runs Ooga Labs, a San Francisco technology incubator that is funding Medpedia. A father of four, he said he was driven to create Medpedia after spending long nights researching his children's symptoms online. Another high-profile technology figure, Mitch Kapor, is an advisor.
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jessica.guynn@latimes.com
