“I have an out-of-the-ordinary value on lab tests that I just picked up. What does that mean? ” “What kind of tests did the doctor prescribe for me?” What disorder can that symptom that I have been feeling for a few days be linked to? Is there any quick fix? ” It is now almost automatic for us to go online and find the answers to questions of this type. It is becoming an increasingly consolidated habit, even more so after the outbreak of the pandemic, to surf the net in search of details on one or another disease, on examinations, tests or screenings. This is also demonstrated by a survey by the Observatories of the Politecnico di Milano on Connected Care conducted in December 2020: 73% of Italians use the internet regularly to search for information on drugs and therapies, 74% to understand health problems and diseases and 62% to make a diagnosis based on your symptoms. And to meet this need there is a serious and reliable site. Is called LabtestsOnLine, the portal of Laboratory Medicine, and describes over 340 laboratory tests and 120 diseases. This year it surpassed 6 million hits.
To help patients, but also doctors
The Italian version of the site was created thanks to an agreement between the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC), which developed it, and the Italian Society of Clinical Biochemistry and Clinical Molecular Biology (SIBioC – Laboratory Medicine), which edited the translation and adaptation to the Italian reality. The aim is to provide rigorous but easy to understand information, describing the usefulness and meaning of the tests, as well as basic information for interpreting the results. For example, you can find clarifications on tests performed or requested by your doctor and on the results, on screening tests, on pathologies and clinical conditions. Not only. The site is also a useful tool for doctors and clinical operators as it contains updates on which tests are most appropriate to answer a clinical question, or to monitor a specific therapy, or to share basic information on laboratory tests.
A tool against fake news
LabTestsOnline wants to stem the disclosure of uncertified medical information. “The reliability of health information is increasingly at risk and scientific societies have a duty to combat the phenomenon by making communication tools available to their competence, so that their origin and traceability are guaranteed”, explains Laura Sciacovelli, president of the Italian Society of Clinical Biochemistry and Clinical Molecular Biology: “The goal, in addition to providing correct information, is to prevent people from requesting, on the basis of indirect and vague information, to undergo useless tests that would not lead to no reliable answer to their questions “. This is why the contents are constantly updated by laboratory medicine experts who adhere to the principles set out by the Health On the Net Foundation (HON), an international non-profit organization that aims to provide reliable medical and health information. And the numbers of users confirm that it is a winning operation: “In Italy – concludes the designated president SIBioC, Tommaso Trenti, Director of the Intercompany Integrated Department of the University Hospital and AUSL Modena – there is a constant increase in access and we are the second site, after the United States, by number of visits “.
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