As individuals take a larger role in managing their own healthcare, more consumers are
independently seeking out health information via the Internet. Health professionals are also
turning to the Internet to keep informed and interact with their patients. Given the vast amount of
healthcare data available on the Internet, the Internet Healthcare Coalition was created to
promote quality health resources online and to ensure that consumers and professionals are able
to find reliable, trustworthy health information online.
The Coalition is an international, non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting
quality healthcare resources on the Internet. Founded in 1997, the Coalition’s membership
represents every sector of the Internet health space, including consumers, patient advocates,
commercial developers of health information, health professionals, medical librarians,
government officials and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The goal of the Coalition is to educate
healthcare consumers, health professionals and others about the evolving issues relating to the
quality of Internet health resources and information.
The Coalition consults with various government agencies, including the World Health
Organization, the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission on broaderbased
efforts to promote credible healthcare information and combat health fraud online. In
addition to acting as a consultant, the Coalition has taken the initiative to gather parties with a
vested interest in an open forum to discuss online healthcare resources.
The Coalition holds an annual conference in October for key thought leaders in the healthcare
industry and government representatives to exchange their thoughts and opinions about the
problems associated with and solutions to healthcare and the Internet. In October 1999,
responding to calls from within the Internet health community, the Coalition launched its
ongoing “eHealth Ethics Initiative” to provide a forum for the development of a universal set of
ethical principles for health-related Web sites. The Coalition can be found at
www.ihealthcoalition.org.
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