Health 2.0, web-based apps and services for the healthcare sector, is a nascent but potentially huge market for web 2.0. As of now, many of these apps have an emphasis on communication, information sharing and community. These are relatively easy things to address using Web tools. However we're starting to see health 2.0 apps try to tackle the enormous inefficiencies in the healthcare system - check out our description of Carol.com below. Also, in the longer term, we will see the Web being used in medical diagnosis and practice.
So what are the leading health 2.0 apps right now? The eDrugSearch blog has an informative interview with Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya, two of the organizers of the upcoming Health 2.0 conference on March 3-4 in San Diego. In the interview, Holt and Subaiya discuss their current favorites.
Matthew Holt is a healthcare strategist and runs The Health Care Blog, while Indu is an MD and founder of healthcare consultancy Etude Scientific:
Others mentioned by the pair:
Of the above apps, Carol looks very interesting to us - as an app trying to solve inefficiencies in the current healthcare system. Carol describes itself as a "care marketplace" and it allows you to shop for "local clinics, doctors and medical care". It aims to put consumers in control of which healthcare providers you see and how much you want to pay, by using "care packages" (basically, a set of goods and services bundled up for convenience). It also provides ratings, comparison tools and enables you to book online.
It is a beautifully designed site and I can see such a service becoming more widely used in the near future, as healthcare red tape slowly unravels. In the short term, as with most health 2.0 apps, it will struggle to fit into current health system processes and will probably mean extra work for consumers. But longer term, using the Internet to route around healthcare system inefficiencies is one of the best 'use cases' of web 2.0 we'll ever get!
Perhaps the leading health 2.0 startup currently is Sermo, a community for physicians to exchange information and collaborate. So far Sermo claims 50,000 physicians. Indu Subaiya, who is an MD, says that the business model could be as revolutionary as Google Adsense was: "it's mind boggling in a way that Google’s Adsense created a whole new set of dynamics. I’d say Sermo is down that type of ground-breaking path."
As we mentioned in our post earlier this week, much of the current crop of health 2.0 apps are based on enhancing communucation, information sharing, and community; rather than tackling the bigger challenges like providing medical diagnosis over the Web. A good example is Google's latest development announced today, a health records application. This is basically just an information storage service - albeit a handy one because patients will be able to access their records much easier.
But that is slowly changing. Carol and Sermo are pointers to new business models that are emerging in healthcare, using the Web. ZocDoc, which enables you to make doctor and dentist appointments online (currently limited to parts of New York), is another.
Online diagnosis will happen too, for example automated online CDSS (Clinical Decision Support Systems). In a ReadWriteWeb comment earlier this week, David Rothman pointed to FreeMD, which claims to be "an electronic doctor that conducts an interview, analyzes symptoms, and provides expert advice — for free." Falafulu Fisi has more analysis of these types of tools in another RWW comment.
What other health 2.0 apps do you have your eye on? We're particularly interested in innovative, potentially ground-breaking web apps that will change how healthcare is done - if not now, then in the near future.
Note: if anyone in San Diego would like to cover the Health 2.0 Conference on March 3-4, for ReadWriteWeb, please email the editor.
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Those are all very good sources, but I am afraid to share my personal info. I came across this one, www.healthranker.com while on zenhabits blog. It looks like a health news hub, similar to digg. I can see it becoming very popular for up to the minute health news. Something to keep an eye on I suppose.
Mike
Posted by: Mike | February 21, 2008 3:33 PMThanks Mike. Yes I too am not ready to share my personal health info on a web app. That is a big hurdle the industry needs to cross.
Posted by: Richard MacManusHey Richard,
Great post as always. I would take a look at Sprigley (http://www.sprigley.com) as a potential addition to your list. I did a post and two-part video to cover their alpha a few weeks back (link below) and am convinced the idea behind it -- developing relevant and ongoing lifestreaming of your physical, mental and emotional health by asking ongoing questions of the user, all while bringing in social media tools to round out the resource/recommendation component -- could potentially change the way we think of healthcare ownership and management.
They've moved to Beta, I believe, and are soon to present at several conference. I highly recommend taking a look.
Thanks for opening our eyes to the other thinkers in this space, too.
Jason Falls
Sprigley Post: http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2008/02/08/new-software-offers-chance-to-revolutionize-health-care/
Posted by: Jason Falls | February 21, 2008 5:46 PMThanks for the link and an interesting post, but I think you (and Holt and Subaiya) may be conflating "Medicine 2.0" with "Health 2.0." Among those who are fond these terms, it has been my experience that "Medicine 2.0" describes the application of Web 2.0 technologies to the needs of healthcare providers, while "Health 2.0" describes either the application of Web 2.0 technologies to patient needs or to a movement that favors making healthcare "patient-centric."
Sermo, available only to physicians (and only to those physicians residing in the U.S.), doesn't really fit in with the other patient-oriented services listed.
Posted by: David Rothman | February 21, 2008 7:28 PMDon't forget iStats.com.au - it allows you to track your fitness progress at the gym or on runs!
Posted by: Craig Morris | February 21, 2008 7:28 PMWow, health 2.0 is really getting bigger, that http://www.healthranker.com site is different from the rest though. It's health news, not patient sharing or doctor sharing.
Posted by: Scotty | February 21, 2008 10:38 PMI have a HDHP and an HSA and was referred to doctorpricing.com by my insurance agent.
Doctors post prices for basic procedures, so cash paying users can find doctors in their area and get an idea of what something is going to cost.
Posted by: deStone | February 22, 2008 1:39 AMHi Richard, have you looked at Medgle? http://www.medgle.com/
Posted by: Sanford | February 22, 2008 3:02 AMThis is self-promotional, but for alternative healthcare (homeopathy) check out http://www.remedi.es.
Steve
Posted by: Steve Odom | February 22, 2008 6:41 AMI was particulary impressed with the Vitals layout. I have seen many of these ratings site but none are as comprehensive as the data shown on Vitals. Also, this is the only ratings site that allows physicians full control to update their data and respond to comments.
Posted by: Dr. Kiss | February 22, 2008 7:14 AMAgreed on Vitals GUI-- too many Community sites forget User Experience.
Thx for this article; we cover a bunch of like players on our blog off www.marketintellnow.com, and esp noted players like Traineo and SugarStats.com of late. Online Health and PHR greatly need the human coaching/encouraging element; far too depressing to just stare at the text or stats that is one's malady.
Posted by: Matt C | February 22, 2008 7:25 AMWhat about Israel-based iMedix?
Posted by: Orli Yakuel | February 23, 2008 4:46 AMTake a look to http//www.keyose.com/
It is a Personal Health Record service that do not ask you any personal information (no name, no email...)
So you (or your doctor) can access your clinical record online but your privacy is totally guaranteed.
In case someone access to the databases of keyose he will find a set of anonimous records (no useful at all).
The company never knows who you are or where you come from. They are trying to give a useful service, and are not interested in knowing your identity or your data.
It is also interesting to notice that the guy behind keyose.com is Dr Julio Bonis, the first Doctor that reported a case of "acute wiiitis" in the international medical literature some months ago.
Posted by: Carlos | February 23, 2008 7:02 PMCheck out VideoMD.com. The YouTube for physicians. Physcians upload patient education videos, and their patients view the videos on an individual page of VideoMD.
Posted by: Dean | February 23, 2008 8:40 PMI've been watching this vertical for about a year now.
there are so many interesting players around.
i think that DailyStrength.org and MDJunction.com are the most interesting ones right now.
also PatientsLikeMe.com but they seem to be moving really slow. nothing really changed there for over a year now.
what do you think?
Posted by: Jeff | February 24, 2008 1:49 AMGreat post!
There's another medical web 2.0 site not mentioned in the post (disclaimer: I have more than a little to do with it :).
It's called Mamaherb.com (www.mamaherb.com) and it's a natural health community-wiki with a very simple, yet ambitious goal: to find out what actually works in natural health.
The site enables users to upload treatments (we have more than 2,700 of them, growing by about 50-70 every day) but equally important - users can vote and comment for the treatments, so, with time, we'll be able to see if Wheatgrass really does what is said or just has a terrible taste....
Since we're very new, I'll be more than happy to get any feedback you might have, people :)
Posted by: Elad | February 24, 2008 1:55 AMSelf promotional....
We run http://www.medications.com
Pretty much a user-generated-content site targeted towards drugs and their effects on everyday people.
Its amazing what side effects people have when they take ordinary prescription medications.
Posted by: Ericson | February 24, 2008 7:48 AMAn excellent service provider to operate a full-blown social network community around a niche topic (a topic can be e.g. an interest, a sport, a hobby, a health issue, etc.) is relenet
http://www.relenet.com
or also http://www.whitelabel.relenet.com
Niche social network communities can be built around a certain health issue. They can be set up fast and operate reliably.
Posted by: Wolf | February 25, 2008 2:35 AMRichard - I'm one of the co-founders of OrganizedWisdom Health ...thank you for the mention of OrganizedWisdom.com in the article
I have a quick favor to ask...the link you have is to our blog and not our main site....would it be OK to ask you to change the link to http://organizedwisdom.com.
Something that might be of interest to your readers is an interview that eDrugSearch did following Matthew and Indu's with Unity Stoakes, the President of OrganizedWisdom.... http://www.edrugsearch.com/edsblog/health-20-interview-series-unity-stoakes/
We'll have several members of our team out in San Diego and would very much like to help you report from the floor. Please ping me at steve [at] organizedwisdom.com.
Posted by: Steven Krein | February 25, 2008 8:25 AMSelf-promotional..
www.mivitals.com is a new Australian company. Core to the application is integrating all treatments including traditional and complementary. New features include SMS/ text reminders for appointments. And coming soon sharing of information with professionals.
Richard - thanks for your previous story!
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mivitals_online_health.php#more
Posted by: Alison Crosbie | February 25, 2008 2:22 PMRichard - An overlooked consumer in the health 2.0 realm are those who make discretionary health & beauty decisions related to "anti-aging". This niche is a ~$30B market, yet most consumers find it extremely challenging to get informed due to the plethora of spam and lack of trusted insights.
I founded RealSelf.com to give consumers a valued place to get an answer to a common question: which anti-aging products, treatments, or procedures are worth it? To this end, RealSelf.com offers thousands of unbiased consumer reviews, user opinion, and answers from medical and beauty industry experts.
Thank you for the opportunity to share.
Posted by: Tom | February 27, 2008 2:04 PMI founded RealSelf.com to give consumers a valued place to get an answer to a common question: which anti-aging products, treatments, or procedures are worth it? To this end, RealSelf.com offers thousands of unbiased consumer reviews, user opinion, and answers from medical and beauty industry experts.
Posted by: 飞机票预定 | March 5, 2008 10:37 PMGreat Post! I also have one Health Website, please check it out and let me know what you think. Here is the website The Social Networking Health News
Posted by: FatBurner | March 7, 2008 11:56 PM