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Günther F. L. Hofbauer, MD; Rachel P. Neuhaus Bühler, BA; Lars E. French, MD; Maria Brockes, MD; Eberhard Scheuer, PhD

Arch Dermatol. 2008;144(9):1225-1227.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Health care is traditionally structured around the conventional office consultation. Complaints about this system include insufficient counseling on management options and insufficient attention to patient concerns and beliefs.¹ In addition, patients frequently cannot remember the basic structure of their care plan.² A patient-centered access model has been suggested to improve availability, appropriateness, preference, and timeliness.³

The University Hospital Zürich in Switzerland has offered an Internet-based question-answering service to the general public free of charge since 1999 (https://www2.onlineberatung.usz.ch/question/faq.aspx?qst_cat_id=17). While most inquiries are answered by a general practitioner, some are referred to specialists, dermatologists being the most requested specialists, which suggests that our specialty is in generally high demand.

Methods

From 2000 to 2005, 16 106 questions were submitted to the University Hospital Zürich Internet-based question-answering service. Of these, 937 questions from . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Results

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