Internet makes the access to enormous quantities of information of a rapid and relatively economic way possible, from any part of the world, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. These are some of the reasons that have stimulated Fundación Ostomía to concentrate its activity across their web page.

Nevertheless, Fundación Ostomía is equally conscious of that the" strengths and opportunities " that Internet offers in guaranteeing the efficient access to the wished information, can transform in "threats" if there is not constant way to guarantee the quality of the information put to disposition, to patients and relatives alike.

For this reason, the excellence pursued by Fundación Ostomía, in the process of informing the decision makers across the web´s different components, demand that a series of requirements are established and fulfilled in order to guarantee the strictness of the information and credit the quality of its contents by national and international organizations.

In search of the excellence of our web, by guaranteeing of the quality of the information incorporated in the same, is the main concern of Fundación Ostomía.

For this reason we have created a Scientific multidisciplinary Committee composed by clinical doctors, surgeons and experienced nurses, epidemiologists, health educators, sanitary economists and researchers; who will have the responsibility of analysing and validate the information before to it is incorporated onto the Fundación Ostomía web.

The criteria that the Scientific Committee will apply in the information selection process for the web, and that will have to be taken into account by all those who want to collaborate, in this activity, with Fundación Ostomía, are the following ones:

• Relevance: the information must relate with the Fundation Ostomia’s fundamental objectives in general, and, more concisely, with the health problems on which Fundación Ostomía centres its attention.
• Scientific validity: scientific information will have to come from scientifically designed studies that have major internal and external validity. For this reason our initial sources of information will be controlled clinical trials, as well as meta-analysis and systematic reviews of the literature performed from the set of available clinical trials in the international literature.
  The scarce use of this type of scientifically designed studies in surgery, will force us, with certain frequency, to incorporate scientific information proceeding from other types of studies, such as “observational studies” or even a series of clinical cases, characterized by their minor levels of scientific evidence on the effectiveness and/or safety of the diagnostic or therapeutic procedures. In these cases Fundación Ostomía, by means of its Scientific Committee, will try to clarify, in every situation, the level of scientific value or evidence of the source of the original information.



• Periodic updates: Fundación Ostomía commits itself to update the contents of the web in two complementary dimensions. The first by means of the constant incorporation of new contents in the areas of interest of the foundation. Complementarily, the previous contents of the web will be checked and updated, as new relevant scientific information becomes available.
  
• Clarity: This point is especially important in adjusting and modifying the contents for the use of the general public. This activity is of great value for Fundación Ostomía, in its commitment in increasing the level of autonomy of the patients in self-management of certain clinical situations or special daily activities that worry them.
  The process of adjustment of the scientific information to the general public starts with the same principle as that of the selection of information for the professionals. That is to say, that before the adjustment the identification of the valid scientific valid source of information is needed. From here it is necessary to carry out the following steps: translation, when the original source of information used is in another language other than Spanish; the synthesis of the information concentrate the message to basic; and adjust the text to a clear and understandable language for the general public. The latter aspect is specially complex, tanking into account that Fundación Ostomía extends its area of activity to Latin-America.