How many of you chose to type your symptoms into a Google search box instead of picking up the phone and calling your doctor’s office the last time you felt under the weather? Chances are, if you have access to a computer — and if you’re reading this, you probably do — nearly 100 percent.

While Congress gets caught up in the political circus over the health care bill, overhauling it, amending it, threatening to repeal it, and sending it to the Supreme Court for review, Internet technology is quietly making health care better simply by arming people with more information. More and more people now use the Web to better educate themselves on healthy lifestyle choices, medical conditions and available therapies. Researchers at MIT’sNew Media Medicine, who are building on this information revolution and working on various projects to empower ordinary people with medical knowledge, call this « destroying the information asymmetry. »

With easy access to their medical data, Media Lab participants can take a more proactive approach to monitoring their health, be it tele-collaborating with health care personnel for shared decision-making, participating in collective community databases pulled from anecdotal medical information, or simply using their cell phones as self-awareness systems to alert them of daily health routines. 

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