Dr Google is poaching patients from flesh and blood GPs, with three out of five Australians turning to the internet to avoid seeing a health professional, a new survey suggests.
The results come on the heels of the search engine giant's foray into symptom searches, but health experts warn against shunning their doctors for the unruly web.
Just under 60 per cent of Australians admitted to looking up health information online to avoid going to a doctor, NPS Medicinewise survey of more than 1000 Australians suggested.
The proportion of online symptom searches avoiding face-to-face appointments rose to almost 80 per cent among 18 to 34 year olds, according to the survey results released Thursday.
Among 35-49 year olds, 67 per cent said they searched the web to avoid making an appointment, and 39 per cent of over 50s followed suit.
The survey also found one in five Australians said they would use Facebook to try and find answers to questions they have about medicines.
NPS Medicinewise spokesperson and pharmacist Aine Heaney didn't begrudge people Googling information about their medication, but not if a reliance on the internet was replacing their contact with medical professionals.
"While it is always a good idea to equip yourself with health-related information, it is important to be aware that not all health information you access on the internet will be accurate or reliable.
"You need to be able to assess the reliability of information found on the internet, and understand limitations of what internet can tell you," she said.
Google recently beefed up its medical prowess, partnering with the US Harvard Medical School and Mayo Clinic to upgrade its mobile app for health-related searches.
Roughly one per cent of Google searches are symptom-related, the tech giant says.
But feverish, germ-addled users have to navigate a quagmire of misleading, overly complicated, sometimes harmful advice in search of the answers to questions like: what is this weird weeping sore on my right toe?
It's an issue Google readily acknowledges in a post on its official blog announcing the upgrade.
From June, "when you ask Google about specific symptoms, like 'headache on one side', we'll show you a list of related conditions ('headache', migraine', tension' headache', cluster headache', sinusitis', and 'common cold')," the post read.
The web results are checked against "high-quality medical information".
"We worked with a team of medical doctors to carefully review the individual symptom information, and experts at Harvard Medical School and Mayo Clinic evaluated related conditions for a representative sample of searches to help improve the lists we show," the post continued.
The announcement came with the disclosure that the symptom search function was for informational purposes only, and that users should always consult their doctors for medical advice.
The recent launch of the new medical app, Ada - marketed as being "smarter than human doctors" and the "world's most accurate health diagnosis service" - prompted a stern warning from Australian GPs.
The smartphone app invites users to enter a list of symptoms to find the most likely explanation.
According to the company that created Ada, the app includes 10,000 symptoms and diseases and was developed by 100 doctors, making it more knowledgeable than any human brain.
But despite a booming market for health apps, including ones that aim to diagnose, research suggests they may not be as reliable as they appear.
Both the Australian Medical Association and Royal Australian College of GPs said they were concerned about the accuracy of the Ada system, and its potential to either falsely reassure people about their health or alarm them unnecessarily.
Last year, three studies published in BMC Medicine found that health apps designed to help people calculate insulin dosages, educate them about asthma and perform other important functions were methodologically weak.
The researchers also found that many apps lacked reliable privacy and security settings, with one sharing personally identifying data about users that should have been kept anonymous.
with Julia Medew
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
