About cookies on this site Our websites require some cookies to function properly (required). In addition, other cookies may be used with your consent to analyze site usage, improve the user experience and for advertising. For more information, please review your options. By visiting our website, you agree to our processing of information as described in IBM’sprivacy statement. To provide a smooth navigation, your cookie preferences will be shared across the IBM web domains listed here.
Publication
WWW 2007
Conference paper
MedSearch: A specialized search engine for medical information
Abstract
People are thirsty for medical information. Existing Web search engines cannot handle medical search well because they do not consider its special requirements. Often a medical information searcher is uncertain about his exact questions and unfamiliar with medical terminology. Therefore, he prefers to pose long queries, describing his symptoms and situation in plain English, and receive comprehensive, relevant information from search results. This paper presents MedSearch, a specialized medical Web search engine, to address these challenges. MedSearch can assist ordinary Internet users to search for medical information, by accepting queries of extended length, providing diversified search results, and suggesting related medical phrases.