On Management of the Health Content Lifecycle

The Internet is an ideal tool for promoting public health goals of prolonging life, health, and improving the quality of life. There are many websites with health-related information where one can go to as an information source, for health advice, or selfdiagnosis. However, these health websites require a more acute awareness of ethical issues due to potential life threatening risks from misuse of information. Providing disclaimers and accreditation logos only goes so far in covering potential legal conflicts, but fulfilling ethical obligations for non-maleficence requires more action on our part. As such, the content lifecycle of these websites requires greater emphasis on privacy, security, and trustworthiness. We propose and give a high-level description of a Health Content Management System (HCMS) that addresses both the managerial, as well as the ethical issues with health content. Surveys of existing health websites and content management systems demonstrate the need for the proposed system. Moreover, the novelty of the proposed HCMS is appraised and asserted in comparison with similar health framework concepts. Our contributions include survey results of more than 50 health websites, taxonomy of health websites’ characteristics, discussion about legal versus ethical obligations, and a blueprint for typical and novel features for health websites. Moreover, this study presents a new approach to analysing health content via lifecycles. Keywords-Ethics; Trust; Medical; Websites; CMS; CMF; Review; Disclaimer; Liability