Mumbai-based Health Education Library for People (HELP), India's first consumer health library, has launched a paid information therapy service for patients recently.
According to infertility specialist-cum-health awareness activist Dr Aniruddha Malpani, the founder of HELP, patients in India have started taking a more active role in their treatment. "They no longer docilely accept their doctor's diktat, and have started questioning treatment options, searching the Net for information and hunting for second opinions. To do this effectively, they need reliable health information, and providing this is the mission of HELP."
HELP has been set up to encourage a healthy doctor-patient partnership and improve doctor-patient communication by educating patients.
"Since many people do not have the time to come to HELP to explore our treasure house of resources, we are starting a new service, which will take our resources to the community. We will deliver a customized information package to patients, consisting of over 50 pages of information on their specific medical problem, gleaned from our collection of over 6,000 books and 10,000 pamphlets. This will be in easy to understand language - free of medical jargon," he says.
A typical package has the following sub-sections: what you need to know about the disease, diagnosis, treatment, leading researchers, recent advances, useful online resources, support groups, mailing list and newsgroups.
It makes a world of difference when a lay-person does an internet search and when a trained and experienced information researcher does the same. An untrained person could mis-spell the word, for example, so you may not get any results at all.
HELP's familiarity with sites dedicated to medical conditions also helps in getting far more information about a medical topic. Just doing a search on Google or Yahoo doesn't give as much information as tapping different online resources. The library taps into commercial proprietary databases such as MDConsult and Healthwise, to help the patient find more information.
Speaking to this correspondent, Medical Information Manager Dr Hufrish Suraliwala said the library would charge the patients Rs 500 for each query. HELP can serve better if the patients write in with all their symptoms and case history. Usually, the responses are sent to patients in 10 days.
The response to the service is tremendous, she claims. HELP will also provide information about the illness treatment options; questions to ask the doctor; and names and addresses of the best doctors. The library will also send a copy of the 350-page book, "How To Get Best Medical Care" and the 80-page book, "My Health Record" with each packet. Dr Malpani says all this would cost only Rs 500.
Dr Malpani, the founder of HELP says, "Patients need information therapy, in which the doctor prescribes the right information to the patient at the right time to help them make wise health decisions. We trust that our service will promote information therapy in India, and help to put the patient back in the centre of the medical universe. Information can be the best prescription, and this is the only therapy which is inexpensive and has no side-effects."
HELP can be contacted on 022-368 3334/ 368 1014 every Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 6.30 pm.