This study investigates the current state of Internet health consultation in the countries of the Asia-Pacific Region through reviewing references and policy reports. The analysis compared the state of countries based on journals related to the Asia-Pacific region and policy reports published by governmental institutions. Among there regions in the world, Asia is showing the fastest growth in the information technology market. In the region, the number of Internet users has reached 233,000,000, three times more than that three years ago. In particular, demand for Internet use is high in the area of health and medicine compared to other areas. Asia-Pacific region will be in information and telecommunication and its Internet use for medical service is outstanding.
An ideal medical portal site should be favored by both medical practitioners and users. Through such a portal site, medical service providers can understand users" needs and the public can get counseling and information, and these will create new demands for medical services. Wrong health information can be harmful to people"s health. Thus, assessment criteria should be developed to evaluate health consultation sites so that people can identify sound information sources and be provided with correct information. In the future, the Internet will become an important route of heath and medicine information service and the number of Internet users will increase further in the countries of the Asia-Pacific Region. Thus, national efforts should be exerted to construct and operation sites related to health consultation in order to provide high-quality health information to Internet users. In addition, the Asia-Pacific Region will surely see the coming of the Korean situation that consumers consider the Internet particularly Web as a means of improving their health, preventing diseases and studying specific illnesses.
|