Patient Information — Best of the Web: Consumer Health Information Links

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Web site provides practical healthcare information, research findings, and data to help consumers, health providers, health insurers, researchers and policy makers make informed decisions about healthcare issues.

Through Health Central.com you can visit an online pharmacy and vitamin store or access a wealth of health content from such sources as Dr. Dean Edell`s radio broadcasts and the People`s Pharmacy. The site also features personalized interactive tools, including custom newsletters, health information pages and risk assessments.

Improving Health Care Quality: A Guide for Patients and Families presents information and lists resources to help you get better quality health care. The guide was produced by the agencies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

InteliHealth, a subsidiary of Aetna US Healthcare, is one of the leading health information companies in the world. With medical expertise drawn from faculty at the Harvard Medical School, InteliHealth includes a nutritional database, a medical dictionary, in-depth facts about diseases and drugs and medical news updated daily.

Mayo Clinic Home is directed by a team of physicians, scientists, writers and educators. In addition to easy-to-understand information about a variety of conditions, the site offers Personal Health Scorecards, Healthy Lifestyle Planners and Disease Self-Managers.

Medscape is a leading commercial Web service for clinicians and consumers. It contains news, the full text of many journal articles, and reference information on health-related matters and prescription medicines.

Quackwatch: Your Guide to Health Fraud, Quackery, and Intelligent Decisions offers extensive information about health-related frauds, myths, fads and fallacies. Its primary focus is on quackery-related information that is difficult or impossible to get elsewhere.

WebMD, hosted by Healtheon/WebMD, describes itself as the first end-to-end Internet healthcare company connecting physicians and consumers to the entire healthcare industry. The site includes a Kid's Height Predictor developed by Wright State University researchers at the Lifespan Health Research Center.