Web 2.0 in Health care - Health 2.0

[Dr.Neelesh Bhandari]

With increasing avenues for communication and knowledge dissemination, the practice of health care is changing faster than imagined. Free services like you tube, face book, Wikis, blogs, Twitter, social networks eg. Patientslikeme and a host of other services provide a health consumer with ample information and opinions. No longer is a patient forced to blindly trust his doctor"s judgment. The patient can easily search for more opinions, review personal experiences of friends and strangers plus the latest research studies in the field. This has changed the role of a Doctor to one of facilitator of health, rather than the unquestionable saviour .

E-Health insider has come up with a 108 paged report titled ‘Web 2.0 in the Health Sector: Industry Review with a UK perspective’. {£575.00 (inc VAT)}

The report argues that e-health 2.0 will first and foremost be consumer-led. Health is consistently one of the most searched for subjects online. The application of web 2.0 technologies into health is already challenging traditional doctor-patient relationships and beginning to place far greater power in the hands of consumers. These changes are likely to be rapid and may prove highly disruptive. Further, it concludes that new applications based on social health networks and content generated by health service users themselves - such as reviews of doctors and hospitals – will rapidly evolve to challenge existing healthcare systems and create new ways of delivering healthcare.

The profiles provide a snapshot of innovation across healthcare: from organisations providing online communities for patients with specific conditions, tools for chronic disease management, sites that enable patients to rate the quality of care they receive, together with tools to enable clinicians to better search for and share research data.

No doubt Web2.0 has changed the game, bringing about a total rethink in long established practices.But this is just the beginning.With Web3.0 and Personalized Medical services like Webicinia and 23andme , internet technologies are bound to change the rules of health care for ever.

Web 2.0 in Health: a Practical Overview

Web 2.0 in Health: a Practical Overview

View more documents from ubcphysioblog.

A few other interesting reads,

* Using Twitter in Health care
* Social Life of Health Information -
* The Engaged E-patient Population-

[Dr.Neelesh Bhandari]

Very Correct, Tom.
The "Personal Health Records" is definitely the best way to go. It improves patient involvement and collaboration.
Of the services you mention, I would ignore Healthvault on Principle. Google too seems to be loosing trust, and people charged with tapping your search patterns cannot be trusted with my personal healthcare information. Dossia looked good,and so did Indivo, but i would have to study them in more detail.
I would expect a third party to manage this as a service,(like travel agents do for travel companies). with all trust issues to be solved by them.

[CC-Conrad Clyburn-MedForeSight]

Tom and Neelesh,

What do you think of this post, An Important New Development? ... NHIN to become The New Consumer F..., which would seem to support your position.

CC

[Tom Caruso]

Yes I agree with Dr. Bhandari. Web 2.0 is changing the face and the infrastructure of health care. I'd like to point to a particular movement that I judge to be central to the changes that will occur: the personally controlled health record as exemplified by Indivo (http://indivohealth.org/), Dossia (http://dossia.org/), Google Health (https://www.google.com/health/) and Microsoft HealthVault (http://www.healthvault.com/). When these reach a critical mass of users, the individual will have greater control of their health information, and will be able to use it to maximize the benefits they obtain from having it in one place for any provider they choose to see it.