Strategies for the education of diabetic patients on the World Wide Web

In recent years, the world has seen the phenomenal growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web. While the growth has largely taken place among English-speaking communities, the widespread use of the Web is expected to extend to countries in Asia by the beginning of the new millennium. A recent report in Businessweek [1] predicts that the number of Internet users in 11 Asian countries (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore,Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam) will rise to nearly 10 million by the end of 1999, and to close to 30 million by 2002. This growth will largely be driven by electronic commerce, but learning and education will also be major forces governing the growth of the Internet in Asia. Over the last two years, the tremendous potential of the Internet, particularly the World Wide Web, in promoting distance education has been recognized by many professional organizations and institutions. With the many Web tools that are now available, and given the multimedia capability of the new information paradigm, there is now an array of strategies that can be implemented for the education of diabetic patients on the Web. These include the use of Web portals, electronic newsletters and journals, discussion groups, interactive forums and support groups, virtual patients and virtual classrooms for distance learning.