Consulting Dr. Google: Searching for Trustworthy Infertility Information

Google. Bing. Yahoo!. They (and their predecessors) have delivered the world to your fingertips. These riches of information are both a blessing and a curse. As of January 12, 2012, the combined number of pages indexed in Google, Bing and Yahoo was estimated to be around 8.64 billion, of which almost one billion are related to healthcare and medical information.

No matter how many websites and pages are returned in your search results, don't rely on luck or the search engines' site rankings to find what you're looking for. Learn identify trustworthy medical information online and empower yourself to become an advocate for your infertility healthcare needs.

Although search engines are able to provide seemingly every bit of information in the world, they can't replace the knowledge and experience that doctors, nurses and other healthcare practitioners bring to the table. According to their corporate website, Google’s mission is to "organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful." They're certainly making great progress on the organization and accessibility aspects of that mission; but having a computer algorithm that can make information useful and, in this case delivering you the exact medical information you want and need is still a dream.

When you type "IVF" (in vitro fertilization) into a search box, for example, Google will deliver every page related to "IVF" to your screen - and the results will be sorted according to what Google thinks is the most relevant ranking. But Google doesn't know that you've had a miscarriage, or that you've already read "just relax" at three hundred and forty other websites, or that you do (or do not) care what the Catholic Church thinks about assisted reproductive technology (ART). Google will give you government sites and blogs and drug manufacturers' sites and discussion forums and the home page of the International Video Federation, and Google will leave it to you to find what you need.

One of the characteristics that seems to be unique to the infertility community (as opposed to the broader healthcare community) is a sensitivity or vulnerability that is often present for those on their infertility journeys.

Reminders of infertility sneak up and hit when we're not paying attention:
And when you're out there earnestly searching for the solution, that awful vulnerable feeling can be set off and amplified a thousand times. It is too easy to trip over the wrong information, read stories that hit too close to home, gain false hope, lose real hope and focus on the wrong information. Knowing this, you can arm yourself with a myriad of ways to identify trustworthy websites and steer clear of information you don't want or need.

We have developed a basic list of healthcare sites that are recommended by IVFConnections as being trustworthy, authoritative and credible resources. In addition, we've identified several characteristics of trustworthy websites that you can use to evaluate healthcare and medical information sites other than those listed here.

1. Non-profit, patient-focused infertility sites
   
2. Infertility-related medical associations
3. Health and medical search engines
4. General search engines
5. For-profit health and medical websites
6. Independent certification for healthcare websites
7. Characteristics of trustworthy sites