Colegio Oficial de MÈdicos de Barcelona (COMB), Barcelona, Spain

Medical Colleges are public institutions with a legally established mission to represent medical practitioners as a whole. The Official Medical College of Barcelona (COMB) represents the medical profession of Barcelona and all of it's regions. It is a centennial corporation, created to defend the interests of the medical profession and ensure that it adheres to ethical and scientific norms in order to offer the best healthcare services to society.

As Internet has the capacity to transmit a volume of information that is both difficult to control and widely available, the COMB emphasizes the necessity to contribute to the accreditation of medical/healthcare information diffused through the network, and the importance of offering support and assistance, whenever necessary, to physicians, consumers and institutions who wish to access this information and be present within the Internet. That’s why the COMB promotes the Web MÈdica Acreditada, WMA (Certified Medical Web Site Seal) (http://wma.comb.es). From 1999 the seal, created to serve as a virtual reference point of the medical community, seeks to establish a set of norms that the owners of medical and healthcare websites can voluntarily follow from Spain and Southamerica to offer consumers a good quality Internet health services.

The WMA has established a process of certification, which includes a standing committee and a delegated committee. These committees serve as consultants to the web site so that the contents, resources, and information of these adapt to the norms of the seal (see in Code of Conduct). Up to now, the WMA has accredited near than 200 health websites.


Contact Information:

Dr. Miquel Angel Mayer
Director of Web MÈdica Acreditada
director.wma@comb.es
http://wma.comb.es
Official Medical College of Barcelona
Spain





(spanish version)

(Last update: 2002-07-03)