[Complementary and alternative medical information on Israeli medical institutions' web sites in 2009: the desirable...

Although complementary and alternative medicine [CAM] is a term commonly used to denote practices that lie beyond the dominant medical orthodoxy, these practices are penetrating Israeli medical institutions. The purpose of the study was to evaluate CAM information on medical institutions' web sites in relation to the type of information considered to be significant by integrative physicians. The methods employed included evaluating CAM information on the websites of: all four health insurance agencies, the eleven largest hospitals in Israel, the Ministry of Health, and the Israeli Medical Association. This data was compared to the primary and most meaningful information stressed by integrative physicians at their conferences and work-meetings.

The information on the insurance agencies' web sites is extensive and prominent, while on the other sites it is more concise and less prominent. A total of 31 diverse CAM methods are mentioned on all healthcare websites, while the Ministry of Health site mentions only four of them. Most sites list only advantages or drawbacks of these methods. Research findings on efficacy and safety, and information on the ethics and legality of CAM practitioners is virtually almost non-existent.

While CAM is portrayed on some of the healthcare organizations' websites as an attractive commodity, on others it is presented as a separate area to be kept under biomedical scrutiny. One would expect healthcare institutions and the Ministry of Health to provide the public with balanced and sufficient information to enable patients to make informed choices and facilitate better integration of CAM with conventional treatments.