Wikipedia is the single leading source of health care information for both providers and patients, with 50 percent of physicians reporting that they've consulted the community-edited, online encyclopedia for information on health conditions. A report from IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, a medical technology company that draws on data from more than 100,000 suppliers and 45 billion healthcare transactions each year, finds that Wikipedia is the single leading source of medical information for patients and healthcare professionals. Serious illnesses, especially less common ones, are among the most frequently searched topics by English-language users.
