If there’s anything that a recent ear ache taught me, it’s that searching for answers on the Internet can be a trying task at times. The world is full of people – all of them doctors in their own mind – and the Internet is a wonderful representation of all their opinions.
While we love this fact when it comes to political discourse and daily musings, health and medicine are a different game, which is why we’re sure to appreciate Google’s latest offering – medication listings in search results.
As Greg Sterling writes, Google first “began integrating structured health-related content at the top of search results” last year as a way to provide authoritative and reliable answers to health-related searches.
That same functionality is expanding today to searches for both name brand and generic medications, with the result summarly linking to information as provided by the National Institutes of Health.
The summary, which is offered at the top of the search results, offers a quick summary of the drug along with quick links to commonly-sought information such as side effects, precautions, dietary instructions and how to take it. According to Sterling, the feature is currently only available in the U.S. and Google declined to say whether or not it would expand to other countries.
