Hyping “Health 2.0″
Today’s iHealthBeat reports on an article from the San Francisco Chronicle on the trend among online health startups to model themselves after social networking sites.
“Health care startups are modeling themselves after YouTube and social networking sites such as MySpace in an effort to connect patients with each other and help them navigate overwhelming amounts of medical information available online.”
Several new resources are highlighted, including ICYou: “the YouTube of health care” where users can upload their own health-related videos; Daily Strength: anonymous, free online support groups for a variety of health issues & life challenges; and RateMDs.com, which allows patients to rate and read about their doctors and dentists.
While it’s great to see health startups adopt 2.0 technologies to more effectively connect patients with consumer health information and health providers, it will be interesting to see which sites will have staying power in the recently emergent field of “health 2.0” and who’s just in it for the money.
Then there’s the question of user-generated content in health care. While a mashup can show you who’s sick in your town, it’s only as good as the amount of information entered. Do we as health information professionals really want to point users to a wiki capturing the knowledge of, say, 300 epileptics, rather than medical experts? A recent article from the Economist.com explores that very question, pointing out a 2004 study from the British Medical Journal , where a panel of neurology specialists judged that only 6% of information posted in an epilepsy-support group was factually wrong. Interestingly enough, the very website under which this research occurred is no longer operational, and now leads to bunk searches from such nefarious dotcom sources as bizrate and slimstore.
And then there’s privacy issues. It’s great to build online communities of like minded individuals, but how much information can you share with an online community before someone’s HIPAA rights are violated? This is certainly an area of concern for medical professionals.
Content, privacy, staying power and community development. All issues ‘Health 2.0′ will have to address in order to, as the health 2.0 wiki puts it, “fundamentally redefine the healthcare industry along other “2.0″ lines”. I think certain trends in Web 2.0 work for consumer health. Certainly online communities are perfect for patients who may not be able to leave the house, or want to know a physicians bedside manner before making an appointment, and many authoritative resources have embraced technology such as podcasts, blogs and streaming video to serve up information. As for the user driven content in health care? Until Medlineplus rolls out a wiki, I’m staying wary.