Physician Prescribing Changes Impacted by Patient-Initiated Online Health Searches.

According to prior studies, that roughly one third of people search the Internet before presenting to an Emergency Department (ED) for acute care, and that 75% of those searches contain inaccurate information. Up to now, no significant studies examined the impact of these searches on the provision of patient care. We conducted an observational study to look at differences in prescribing patterns among patients who searched the Internet about an acute medical issue before presenting to the ED. Accounting for demographic differences, we found that those who searched the Internet about a specific health problem before presenting to the ED were less likely to receive a medication in general (RR 0.67), but more likely to receive an opioid medication (RR 1.56) and equally likely to receive an antibiotic (RR 1.01). This study demonstrates how the lack of credible online health information has the potential to change clinical decision making.