[Evaluation of Swedish and Finnish web portals for physicians. The usability is considerable but there are problems with privacy and ethics].

A critical overview of Swedish and Finnish medical web portals for doctors is presented in this article. Three Swedish and three Finnish portals were analysed using 54 dichotomous questions, derived from the guidelines of the American Medical Association (AMA), and 17 technical heuristic questions for web usability. 34 portal features were cross-tabulated with all portals. None of the portals did adhere to the AMA guidelines perfectly. Several problems with advertising, sponsorship, and website privacy were observed. Besides professional functionalities, the portals provided services for personal communication and entertainment features. The incomplete correspondence between the AMA guidelines and the current praxis of Nordic web portals for doctors may have many reasons. However, it is safe to conclude that Swedish and Finnish portals for physicians have some severe publicistic or ethical problems. Every physician should note that website privacy is not enough respected.