On The Net
This site offers information compiled by the Wilmer Eye Institute

The Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins University has been voted the best ophthalmic hospital in the United States for 12 of the past 13 years. With such a stellar reputation, one would expect the Wilmer Web site to constitute a virtual treasure trove of useful information for ophthalmologists and their patients.

Well, the good news is that the www.wilmer.jhu.edu site contains a huge amount of information and more relevant links than any other Web site we've encountered in the 2 years we've been writing this column. The not-so-good news is that much of the content hasn't been updated in quite a while.

But help is coming. When we recently spoke with the webmaster of the Wilmer site, he said that an initiative is now under way to update content throughout the site.

Meanwhile, if you can spare an hour to explore the site, you'll find some fascinating features that you won't find anywhere else. One of the best is "Professor's Rounds," a compilation of a dozen comprehensive case histories of patients who presented with a variety of eye diseases and conditions. Another gem is the Macular Degeneration Center, a good place to recommend to your AMD patients who want to know more about the disease, how to live with it, and what's being done to combat it. The Center's regular MacFacts newsletter is a must-read.

The Wilmer site also provides links to numerous ophthalmology-related journals and organizations, offers information on research being conducted at the hospital, and provides a great deal of basic information about the eye and eye diseases.

The task now is to update content so that the Wilmer Web site is the equal of the facility it represents.

Visit www.wilmer.jhu.edu

If you've discovered a Web site or service that's been useful to you in practice or at home, we'd like to know about it. E-mail Jerry Helzner at helznergi@boucher1.com  or call him at (215) 643-8013.