Considerations on the quality of medical software and information services

Fast developments in information and communication technology have made it possible to develop new services for citizens. One of the most interesting areas is health care. Medical knowledge is usually valid all over the world that makes the market global. Information services and decision support software are becoming important tools for medical professionals but also ordinary citizens are interested in health related information. It has been estimated that by the year 2010 the turnover of health care telematics industry may be close to that of the drug industry today. The nature of this global information industry is very different from any industry in history. Since there are no frontiers, no clear products and no shops in the information market, it is difficult to develop any effective legislation. However, the history of medicine has shown that health care sector cannot be free from regulation without risking citizens' health. The huge commercial potential of the Internet has already been used to promote products and services that have no proven effect on health and that may sometimes be even dangerous. In this paper we discuss the needs and possibilities to assess the quality of medical decision support software and information services. For brevity the terms medical software and medical knowledge are used, but the issues also relate to informatics systems used by any health professional, and to computerised systems used to schedule care or to organise record systems. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.