How can patients and their families find trustworthy and reliable information online about diseases and medical conditions? And how can they use reliable channels to connect with specialists who focus specifically on the relevant field? To ensure a high level of reliability in the often overwhelming online marketplace, the Aktionsforum Gesundheitsinformation has developed its own seal of approval. The Leading Medicine Guide has now been awarded this seal—and comprehensively certified. A mark of quality. And a sign that the medical market has become more transparent thanks to this online portal.
From the very beginning, this has been one of the Leading Medicine Guide’s key goals: Our medical field must become more transparent! As a result, the high-quality criteria were practically self-evident: All content offered must be created and published objectively, factually, free of advertising, and independent of any vested interests. The focus is clearly and unmistakably on factually accurate and up-to-date information.
The Aktionsforum Gesundheitsinformation e.V. (afgis for short) has also set itself the goal of making the market more transparent and making it easier to identify providers who stand for trustworthiness and reliability—and of giving people the opportunity to better evaluate offers and information. So it was only a matter of time before these two active market reformers joined forces.
Clear Goal: Greater Transparency in the Online Market
“We set out to enable people to find the right specialists for their symptoms and conditions without much effort, at no cost, and without any hurdles.” This is stated in the online portal Leading Medicine Guide’s insightful “About Us” section on its website, which also offers an interesting historical overview. With its relaunch in the fall of 2019, the specialist portal took a huge step toward achieving this goal, as the results of visibility analyses also show. Leading Medicine Guide is definitely on the right track. In fact, it has never been easier than it is today to find the right specialist for a medical condition online—quickly and with a high degree of certainty.
Leading Medicine Guide: High-Quality Health Information
As the first online platform of its kind, Leading Medicine Guide has, from the very beginning, placed the utmost importance on addressing the sensitive topic of health information on the internet with the highest level of meticulousness.
This has now been confirmed by the afgis network: The award recognizes a health website that provides “high-quality health information,” as afgis states. For the independent network, it is important to separate the wheat from the chaff: After all, there are “numerous dubious websites that disguise product advertising as health information or spread misinformation.”
To provide reliable guidance—especially for potential patients—afgis developed its own evaluation process. The network assessed the online portal using a total of ten transparency criteria. The thorough investigation focused on transparency, the identification of authors and editors, the opportunity for user feedback, and the reliability of the information sources. Internal quality assurance procedures and the clear separation of advertising from editorial content were also very important to afgis. Since there is absolutely no advertising on Leading Medicine Guide, this point was naturally addressed quickly. Incidentally, strict compliance with data protection guidelines was also part of the review.
Effective immediately, the Leading Medicine Guide, as a certified provider of reliable health information, is authorized to use the network’s quality logo, which serves as a seal of approval. This allows users to recognize even more quickly what they can expect from the specialist portal.
Incidentally, the Health Information Action Forum—a consortium of companies, organizations, and associations—was initiated in 1999 by the Federal Ministry of Health. The network has existed as a registered association since 2003.
