Discussion Groups Site Earns Honcode Certification

[MartyT]

Having requested a certification review from the Health On the Net (HON) Foundation earlier this month, I am happy to report that on September 23, 2010 I was notified that both the Grief Healing Blog and HOV's Grief Healing Discussion Groups Web sites are fully compliant with Health on the Net Foundation 's HONcode. Both sites are now HONcode-certified, which entitles us to display the HONcode seal on the sites' home pages! You will find it there now, on the GH Blog's main page and on our Discussion Groups Guidelines page.

This is yet another way to assure those who visit our sites that they are of the highest quality, and that we hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards.

Health On the Net (HON) was founded to encourage the dissemination of quality health information for patients and professionals, and to facilitate access to the latest and most relevant medical data. The Health On the Net (HON) Foundation is a non-governmental organization, internationally known for its pioneering work in the field of health information ethics, notably for the establishment of its code of ethical conduct, the HONcode—the oldest and most trusted code for medical and health-related information available on the Internet. Currently the code is used by over 7300 certified websites and displayed on more than 10 million pages covering 102 countries. The HON web site http://www.healthonnet.org/ is visited by 27,000 visitors world-wide every day.

The HONcode certification is an ethical standard aimed at offering quality health information. It demonstrates the intent of a site to publish data that are useful, objective and correct. The HONcode seal certifies that a Web site provides transparency regarding authority, authorship, confidentiality, and funding, is up-to date, honest about advertising, and provides clear distinction between advertisement and editorial content.

When certification is requested, a site is examined by a HONcode review committee (which includes medical professionals) who make a thorough visit to the site to verify if all eight of the HONcode ethical principles are respected. A site which is found to respect the eight HONcode principles is given a unique dynamic seal to place on its pages. The seal is directly linked to a HONcode certificate located on the HON website, so that future visitors need only to click on the seal to make certain that certification is still valid.

[Kavish]

Thank you Marty T,

For providing succor and friendship of the kin with your inspiration.

Cheers,

Kavish