Websites bridge gaps between patients and doctors and marketers

Two new websites seek to provide more treatment information.

"Conveying how well a therapy works — and doing so in understandable terms — isn't easy, but a group of physicians is trying to change that," The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog reports. "Their new website, TheNNT.com, looks at a stat called the 'number needed to treat,' which it defines as 'a measurement of the impact of a medicine or therapy [that estimates] the number of patients that need to be treated in order to have an impact on one person.'" The site draws on evidence from existing studies (Hobson, 10/5).

Another site being launched is offering advice to consumers, some of it from paid sponsors, The New York Times reports. "Starting on Thursday, the Web site Sharecare.com is to arrive, offering what its proprietors call an interactive social Q.& A. platform to provide consumers with what they want to know on health and wellness subjects — with the A's being contributed by, among others, marketers. Sharecare.com will begin with content contributed by organizations like AARP, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Red Cross, the Cleveland Clinic [and] Johns Hopkins ... Those contributors are to be known as experts on the site. There is another label, knowledge partners, for marketers that are paying an estimated $1 million to $7 million to become sponsors of Sharecare.com" while providing content (Elliot, 10/6).