I am in middle of doing a cheap, on-the-fly kitchen renovation so I don’t have much time to talk, but I wanted to share this with you.  It always bugs me how old folks are underrated. 

A doctor wrote an article (excerpts below) on the excellent Health Care Blog today (healthcareblog.com) about how doctors and patients might work together in the future to optimize the use of the vast amount of medical information that is available on the Internet.   (This article also contains a number of links to patient-friendly websites that you might want to check out.)

What blew me away is the number of seniors vs. doctors who are “wired”, according to the author.   So much for stereotypes.
 
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What is the Physician’s Role in a Web-based World?

By JAY PARKINSON MD, April 15, 2009

“The reality is this:

“Percentage of people age 65 and over online today = 41%

“Percentage of docs and hospitals who use computers = 9%

“Even the elderly are more wired than doctors! And guess what they’re doing? They’re visiting Dr. Google. If their team leader isn’t accessible, well, folks, it looks like patients are on their own turning to really helpful resources like ACOR,  MEDgle, other patients, Your Flowing Data, and rateadrug.com. Without a doctor on the other end of these links, even those cutting edge, senior netizens are leaving us behind blinded by their dust as we’re struggling to write our own chicken scratch paper notes.”