HONcode Certified

I am so excited, I have been working on a personal site of mine for sometime now. Its about Borderline Personality and Bipolar disorders. The site features a forum community, articles, recommended books, Q&A section as well as blogs. A lil over a week ago I applied for it and went to make sure that all the qualifications I need to get it were done before they reviewed it which took about a week to do. Yesterday I received my email saying CONGRATULATIONS, and that I was certified. This is a certificate that all major health sites get and I am so happy to know I was able to get it as well. I am still in awe of it when I see the logo at the bottom of the site. I guess that is where the geek comes out of me.

Now in case you are wondering about this site it is www.bpdfriends.com

What is HONCode? – Information below borrowed from http://www.hon.ch/

HON has been created for improving the quality of information intended to both patients and medical professionals for facilitating quick access to the most relevant and up-to-date medical discoveries.

HONcode is the oldest and the most used ethical and trustworthy code for medical and health related information available on Internet.The HONcode is designed for two target audiences: the general public and the web publisher, actively involving the site owner in the process of certification.

The HON Foundation is a Non-Governmental Organization, internationally known for its pioneering work in the field of health information ethics, notably for the establishment of its code of ethical conduct, the HONcode.

Introduction

The Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode) for medical and health Web sites addresses one of Internet’s main healthcare issues: the reliability and credibility of information.

The Internet has become one of the most widely-used communication media. With the availability of Web server software, anyone can set up a Web site and publish any kind of data which is then accessible to all.

The problem is therefore no longer finding information but assessing the credibility of the publisher as well as the relevance and accuracy of a document retrieved from the Net.

In many cases, a given Web site provides no appropriate documentation regarding the scientific design of a medical study, nor are studies made available that support given claims.

The Health On the Net Foundation has elaborated the Code of Conduct to help standardise the reliability of medical and health information available on the World-Wide Web.

The HONcode is not an award system, nor does it intend to rate the quality of the information provided by a Web site. It only defines a set of rules to:
- hold Web site developers to basic ethical standards in the presentation of information;
- help make sure readers always know the source and the purpose of the data they are reading.