Healthocrates is a free online medical encyclopedia project. Healthocrates is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. With some exceptions, its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet, simply by clicking the edit this page link. The name Wikipedia is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative website) and encyclopedia. Since its creation in 2007, Healthocrates has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference Web sites.

In every article, links will guide the user to associated articles, often with additional information. Anyone is welcome to add information, cross-references or citations, as long as they do so within Healthocrates's editing policies and to an appropriate standard. One need not fear accidentally damaging Healthocrates when adding or improving information, as other editors are always around to advise or correct obvious errors, and Healthocrates's software, known as MediaWiki, is carefully designed to allow easy reversal of editorial mistakes.

Because Healthocrates is an ongoing work to which, in principle, anybody can contribute, it differs from a paper-based reference source in important ways. In particular, older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while newer articles may still contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism. Users need to be aware of this to obtain valid information and avoid misinformation that has been recently added and not yet removed (see Researching with Wikipedia for more details). However, unlike a paper reference source, Healthocrates is continually updated, with the creation or updating of articles on topical events within minutes or hours, rather than months or years for printed encyclopedias.