How to create the fortitude to face medical care challenges

In today's world, where information is more abundant than ever before, it is natural for many patients and their families to conduct their own research into information about medical care. However, as science has evolved, medical care has become specialized and complicated, making it increasingly difficult to understand the information accurately. It is becoming increasingly likely that if we do not select the appropriate information from that provided by the various types of media, we will realize at a later point that we made the wrong decision. Thus, the importance of communication enabling "correct understanding and an appreciation of its reasonableness," is increasing with each passing year. However, in the extremely busy medical setting, there is also a growing need to streamline this communication.

Under these circumstances and in order to help provide patients and their families with a means to obtain appropriate medical information themselves, we started the Medley Medical Information Service. As each patient has their own differing symptoms and social environments, providing "optimal" medical information to each patient is difficult. However, it is possible to provide "appropriate" information that every patient should have, and this will become the knowledge base necessary for each patient to obtain optimal information for their needs.

At Medley, we define appropriate medical information as being accurate, up-to-date, and neutral. In addition, it is important to offer comprehensive information as medical information services are said to be unreliable when they only deal with information about some diseases or lack information about drugs even if there is information regarding diseases. Therefore, we decided to establish a comprehensive medical information service that makes use of the expertise of internal and external physicians to ensure the accuracy, currentness, neutrality, and comprehensiveness of information offered.

Aiming for the continuing evolution of medical information services

Since the launch of the Medley Medical Information Services in 2015, the service has been improved to place emphasis on providing easy-to-understand updates to non-healthcare professionals, including the provision of feedback from collaborating physicians, information on newly launched drugs, and revised guidelines.

Achieving lofty ideals, though, is not easy. The field of medicine includes not only a vast amount of knowledge but also continuous progress, and thus, it will never be complete. There is also difficulty with only having a bird's-eye view of these highly specialized fields and communicating the information in an easy-to-understand manner. However, Medley tirelessly continues to grow and evolve as a medical information service that enables patients to have the strength to face medical care challenges.