Super Smart Health

Harnessing Health 2.0

by Daniel Friedland | Nov 19, 2008 08:55:00 PM

The challenge in searching for health information doesn’t lie in the broad questions such as, “how do I treat diabetes,” but in asking narrow focused personalized questions like, “how does a brand new drug I’m taking interact with another specific drug in someone with a disease condition just like mine.” In Health 2.0 lingo these specific questions involve searches into the “long tail” (the head being the frequently asked questions on a topic and the tail very specific infrequently asked queries – if you’re interested to read more on this click here).

Health 2.0 endeavors to solve the challenge of searching into the long tail. A single definition of health 2.0 is not easy to come by as there are a number and it still seems to be evolving (you can read more here and here). As best I can synthesize and simplify, Health 2.0 empowers patients with the specific information they need to make rational health decisions and involves three main components.

The first two components were memorably illustrated at last months’ Health 2.0 Conference, in an opening slide by Mathew Holt, one of the conference co-founders, showing a comb and beer suds. This image captured the complementary function of combing for specific information using intelligent search solutions and enabling it to bubble to the surface by harnessing the power of crowds in online communities. The third component of Health 2.0 involves the use of smart tools to facilitate many areas of healthcare such as making diagnosis, assessing personal risk, managing health conditions, selecting affordable drugs and health plans, checking drug interactions, organizing personal health records, managing health finances, finding and communicating with healthcare providers and more.

Be on the lookout for offerings that can empower you in each of these areas. At the Health 2.0 Conference many companies showed their wares. A sampling of a few making an impression:

Intelligent Search:

• RightHealth: noteworthy for the 360 degree view they provide on any given search using an algorithm to identify trusted resources.

• OrganizedWisdom: provides a human generated list of recommended links on a comprehensive list of health topic reviews.

Online Communities:

• PatientsLikeMe: enables users to share information on a number of neurological and mood conditions and HIV/AIDS and provide them tools to describe their symptoms in great detail, which lends itself to user generated research (more of this in a future blog).

• Sermo: the largest community networking site for physicians.

Tools:

• American Well: enables you to log on and engage a selected healthcare provider in an online visit, typically within 20 minutes.

• DestinationRx: a helpful resource to find lower cost drugs and compare the total costs of the numerous Medicare Part D plans (including health premium and drug costs).

• PharmaSURVEYOR: enables you to trouble shoot your medication list for drug interactions.

We’ll be incorporating many of these resources into the gateways at SuperSmartHealth and will keep you abreast of others we discover in future blogs. Please feel free to comment or share with us any other resources you find helpful here too.

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