Diabetes and the internet

Abstract

This paper examines what the World Wide Web has to offer patients, families and professionals in relation to diabetes. The potential pitfalls and dangers are discussed, leading to a wider debate on how the Internet can be expected to impact upon diabetes and other health care provision in the near future, and how health care professionals' practices will have to change. Themes include: the World Wide Web (finding material, assessing authenticity, pitfalls for patients, personalized pages, chat rooms, security); e-mail consultation (benefits, risks, minimizing risk, what to tell patients, legal constraints, security); telemedicine (telemetry, surveillance, security); search engines (journals, etc.); looking ahead (digital television, web-based medical records).