|
U.S. doctors answer flu questions on new website
2009-10-22
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Worried about your child's flu symptoms but don't want to risk a visit to a germ-infested waiting room? A free interactive website from The American Medical Association, built with partners Microsoft and personal health record provider Healthy Circles, may be able to help. The website, AMAfluhelp.org, offers information about seasonal and H1N1 pandemic flu and gives advice on when to seek a doctor's help. Unlike sites like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's CDC.gov and flu.gov, this website allows doctors to communicate with patients. Eventually, it will permit doctors to prescribe routine medications online. During the H1N1 pandemic, the website may help ease the crush of calls to doctors from worried parents and patients and help identify those who need treatment, said Dr. Mary Anne McCaffree, a pediatrician from Oklahoma City and member of the AMA board. "If you had 25 or so phone calls a day to your office and now you're having 1,000 calls, it is very hard to find the needle in the haystack to see who is the very sickest," McCaffree said in a telephone interview. The website's introduction during the H1N1 flu pandemic has made it especially useful, offering a way to protect healthier patients from exposure to swine flu by keeping them out of clinic waiting rooms, she said. The information is based on the latest CDC flu guidelines, which do not account for other potential infections that cause flu-like symptoms, such as group A streptococcus, which is responsible for "strep throat" and can be treated with antibiotics. For cases like that, parents will still need use their own judgment, said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC. (Editing by Xavier Briand)
|  |
 Millions begin hajj amid swine flu fears (2009-11-25) | | Experts say radical measures won't stop swine flu (2009-11-19) | | Vaccines on horizon for AIDS, Alzheimer's, herpes (2009-11-17) | | Pig DNA mapped: may help with vaccines (2009-11-05) | | Tracking how flu evolves -- it has sticky tricks (2009-10-29) | | Obama girls' vaccine: Favoritism or good example? (2009-10-29) | | Health experts: Kids should get seasonal flu shot (2009-10-29) | | 2010 athletes, spectators urged to get H1N1 shots (2009-10-28) | | US swine flu vaccine outlook improving, CDC says (2009-10-27) | | New York City Marathon Takes H1N1 Precautions (2009-10-26) | | US swine flu deaths surpass 1,000 (2009-10-25) | | RI tracking swine flu through electronic records (2009-10-25) |  U.S. doctors answer flu questions on new website (2009-10-22) | | Production of swine flu vaccine is way behind (2009-10-21) | | Hitting early, swine flu claims 11 more kids in US (2009-10-17) | | Pigs may have tested positive for H1N1 (2009-10-16) | | Swine flu 6 months later: Relief, but winter looms (2009-10-16) | | Sickest swine flu cases in Canada, Mexico detailed (2009-10-13) | | Swine flu and kids: Heed warning signs, MDs say (2009-10-13) | | Poorer nations to get donated swine flu vaccine: WHO (2009-10-12) | | US, other nations stop counting pandemic flu cases (2009-10-09) | | Poll: Third of parents oppose swine flu vaccine (2009-10-08) | | Rite Aid alters flu-shot policy for pregnant women (2009-10-08) | | WHO says H1N1 vaccine safe, urges mass take-up (2009-10-06) | | Pregnant? Get a flu shot -- but it may be a hassle (2009-09-29) |
|
|
|
|
|
