Taking a look behind the scenes: Updating health information on Gesundheitsinformation.de

The website Gesundheitsinformation.de and its English sister website InformedHealth.org are a service of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG). IQWiG has the legal mandate to provide all citizens with independent and scientifically proven free health information. The website currently comprises information on more than 300 diseases and health issues ("topics"). Evidence-based medicine (EBM) forms the base of Gesundheitsinformation.de. Regular updates are therefore an important quality criterion. Usually, the information is updated every three years. The paper will describe a major update process of the individual topics on Gesundheitsinformation.de. The major process includes 10 steps (e.g., evidence search, medical writing, editorial revisions, and translation). The updating process is currently being reviewed to see whether the effort required for individual tasks can be reduced. The aim is to update/produce more health information with the same resources and without any loss of quality.