About The Medpedia Project
The Medpedia Project is a long-term, worldwide project to evolve a new model for sharing and advancing knowledge about health, medicine and the body among medical professionals and the general public. This model is founded on providing a free online technology platform that is collaborative, interdisciplinary and transparent. Read more about the model.
Users of the platform include physicians, consumers, medical and scientific journals, medical schools, research institutes, medical associations, hospitals, for-profit and non-profit organizations, expert patients, policy makers, students, non-professionals taking care of loved ones, individual medical professionals, scientists, etc.
As Medpedia grows over the next few years, it will become a repository of up-to-date unbiased medical information, contributed and maintained by health experts around the world, and freely available to everyone. The information in this clearinghouse will be easy to discover and navigate, and the technology platform will expand as the community invents more uses for it.
In association with Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School and other leading global health organizations, Medpedia will be a commons for the gathering of the information and people critical to health care. Many organizations have united to support The Medpedia Project. See the Record of Merit.
Medpedia is a technology platform – what’s available today
Version 1.0 of the online Medpedia platform was released in beta on Feb 17, 2009. At the time three interrelated collaborative services were operational: 1) a collaborative encyclopedia or knowledge base (a wiki), 2) a Network & Directory for health professionals and organizations, and 3) Communities of Interest where medical professionals and non-professionals can share information.
Knowledge: Collaborative Medical Encyclopedia (or knowledge base) Covering any information about health, medicine and the body.
The Medpedia wiki is the collaborative encyclopedia and resource for information about health, medicine and the body.
- Reference source for both medical professionals and the lay-public covering information about health, medicine and the body
- Forum for individuals and groups to be recognized for their areas of expertise
- Clearinghouse of bio-medical journal articles, data, research, and educational materials
- Forum for debating emerging issues
- Platform for advancing medical knowledge
Only physicians and Ph.D.s are allowed to edit the Articles on Medpedia after they create an account and are approved as an Editor.
Non-Editors can create an account and then suggest changes that must be approved by an Editor before going live on the site. To suggest changes, click the link "Suggest Changes" at the top of Article Pages.
Dozens of medical organizations have released, or pledged to release, content from copyright and add it to Medpedia. If you are an organization, you can apply to contribute content.
Professional Network & Directory
For use by medical professionals including physicians, researchers, nurses, engineers in medical device companies, hospital administrators, public health officials, employees of medical associations, and anyone whose career in medicine and health leads them to have special expertise they can share with the community.
Also for use by medical organizations, which can register to receive their own area on the platform. For instance, organizations can use Medpedia to network their members. As of February 2009, examples include: the American Heart Association (AHA), the University of Michigan Medical School (UMMS), the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS), the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, and the European Federation of Neurological Societies (EFNA), etc.
- Free, customizable professional network for organizations
- Communications tool for working groups and associations
- Recruiting tool for research collaborators, grants, and employment
- Expertise directory
- Clinical referral network
- Professional address book for colleagues of all disciplines
Communities of Interest
For use by both medical professionals and non-professionals.
- Knowledge sharing and communications tool for people with similar medical interests
- Source of insight and new knowledge for medical professionals
- Historical repository for real-world discussions of medical topics of interest
- Prepare to Suggest Changes to Articles
- Up-to-date news of the latest developments in medicine
Licensing
The Medpedia Project and Medpedia.com is maintained by Medpedia Inc., a brainchild of Ooga Labs, a technology greenhouse in San Francisco. The wiki portion of Medpedia runs on Mediawiki, open source software which runs many wikis including Wikipedia. Like Wikipedia, the Articles created on Medpedia.com are freely licensable under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License (CC-BY-SA) unless otherwise noted. For more details on Medpedia license rules, see the Terms of Use.
Medpedia Board of Advisers
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Joseph B. Martin, M.D., Ph.D.
Former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University
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Linda Hawes Clever, M.D., M.A.C.P.
Clinical Professor, University of California San Francisco Medical School
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Gilbert S. Omenn, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor, University of Michigan Medical School
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Mitch Kapor
Founder, Lotus Development Corp., co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, founding Chair of the Mozilla Foundation, member of the Advisory Board for the Wikimedia Foundation, entrepreneur and philanthropist
Other Key Advisers
A group of distinguished individuals also help guide Medpedia, including:
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Anthony L. Komaroff, M.D.Professor at Harvard Medical School and Editor in Chief of Harvard Health Publications Division of Harvard Medical School
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John E. Swartzberg, M.D.Professor, University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, Editor of the Berkeley Wellness Newsletter
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Henry J. Lowe, M.D.Associate Professor of Medicine and Senior Associate Dean for Information Resources and Technology at Stanford University School of Medicine
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Robert W. Lash, M.D.Associate Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School
Associations
The following organizations are working in association with Medpedia:
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Harvard Medical School is one of the world's preeminent institutions in medical education and research. The student body comprises more than 700 men and women in the M.D. program, more than 600 students in the Ph.D. program, and of those many are in the joint M.D.-Ph.D. programs, part of which is sponsored in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They are taught by a faculty of more than 9,000, the largest graduate faculty at Harvard and the largest medical faculty in the world. Read more -
The Stanford School of Medicine is a premier research-intensive institution that improves health through collaborative discoveries and innovation in patient care, education and research. They foster a two-way transfer of knowledge between research laboratories and patient-care settings with faculty, staff, postdoctoral scholars and students engaging in interdisciplinary efforts that transfer this knowledge into therapies to treat and prevent disease. Read more -
Internationally renowned for research and education, the University of Michigan Medical School and the University's hospitals have been leaders in academic medicine in America for more than a century and a half, producing generations of outstanding physicians and medical scientists. Read more -
Since its founding in 1943, the Berkeley School of Public Health has become one of the world's preeminent centers dedicated to the promotion and protection of the health of human populations and is noted for the excellence of its programs in teaching, research, and service activities. These programs, grounded in an understanding of biological and social science theories and mechanisms, are integrated through a focus on communities that reach from the neighborhoods surrounding the Berkeley campus to settings around the world. Read more
Organizations associated with Medpedia are not responsible for the content that appears in the editable pages of Medpedia, which can contain content submitted by other health professionals or other persons, including those who may not be affiliated with these organizations.
Other organizations which support Medpedia include:
- American College of Physicians (ACP)
- American Heart Association (AHA)
- Oxford Health Alliance (OxHA)
- Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS)
- European Federation of Neurological Associations (EFNA)
- National Health Services (UK)
Medpedia.com Disclaimer
The content on or accessible through Medpedia.com is for informational purposes only. Medpedia is not a substitute for professional advice or expert medical services from a qualified healthcare provider. Information on Medpedia is for educational and informational purposes only; it is not intended as and does not substitute for professional medical advice. If you are a patient, see your doctor for advice and diagnosis. If you are affected by any potential health or medical emergency, call your local emergency service immediately.
Medpedia does not recommend or endorse any treatment, institution, professional, physician, product, procedure or other information that may be mentioned on Medpedia. By using this site, you understand that the information provided on Medpedia is written and monitored by a large community of people that are not employees of Medpedia or controlled by Medpedia.com and the content changes constantly. Medpedia content is provided "as is" and without any representations or warranties of any kind.