Health Websites

Commission issues Communication setting out quality criteria

The European Commission has issued a Communication setting out core quality criteria for healthcare websites, which may be used to implement national or private measures to enhance the quality of these sites¹. The Communication offers advice to suppliers on complying with the criteria (which are transparency and honesty, authority, privacy and data protection, updating of information, accountability and accessibility) and on tailoring the goals for different types of websites. Examples given of ways to implement the criteria include the use of codes of conduct, self applied codes or quality labels, user guidance tools, filtering tools and third party quality and accreditation systems. In providing this information the Communication also intends to inform users of what should be expected from a 'good' health website.

Drafted through a workshop with 60 representatives from the government, industry, non-governmental organisations and the on-line public in the EU, Norway, Switzerland and the US, the Communication urges member states and national and regional health authorities to implement quality criteria with the assistance of this document. Implementation of the criteria will be monitored by the Commission as part of the eEurope 2005 Action Plan. The possibility of discussing a system of recognisable EU marks of approval for Internet sites ('trustmarks') is also mentioned in the document, however this is beyond the remit of the eEurope 2002 activities and would have to form part of a future eEurope action plan.

References

1. Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - eEurope 2002: Quality Criteria for Health related Websites (COM(2002) 667 final), 29 November 2002