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One year ago, I discovered that I had contracted Type 1 Diabetes. I was 36 at that point and it's relatively rare for someone of my age to suddenly get Type 1 Diabetes - indeed they used to call this form of diabetes "juvenile diabetes", because it mostly occurs in children. So it was quite a shock to discover that I had it! Immediately I looked to the Web to find out all I could about this condition. I discovered a thriving community of 'health 2.0' apps and social networks, which I then wrote about in this blog.
As it's now a year later, I thought it'd be good to review health 2.0 - as I did with Semantic Apps last week. What has changed in web-based health services over the past year? And indeed what web tools do I use to help me manage diabetes?
A report was released today by pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research, stating that the number of U.S. adults who are Health 2.0 consumers has risen to over 60 million. Manhattan Research defined Health 2.0 consumers as those who have conducted one of the following activities in the past 12 months: read health-related blogs, message boards or participated in health-related chatrooms; contributed or posted health content online such as: writing or commenting on a health-related blog, adding or responding to a topic in a forum or group, or creating health related web pages, videos or audio content; used online patient support groups, message boards, chatrooms, or blogs.
"The United States is far behind other countries when it comes to health care," Deb Levine (Founder, ISIS), told the audience this week at the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, CA.
"One of the United Nations development mandates is to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as much as possible to move countries forward in their development. [But] because of the economic split in the U.S. between the small percentage of ultra wealthy and the large numbers of folks in need, Americans need ICT for health care just like folks in Africa, Asia and Latin America," she said.
In the middle of one of the worst economic crises experienced by the US, Health 2.0 Advisor Jane Sarasohn-Kahn confirmed today that US citizens are not as focused on heath care as they were a year ago.
"Twelve months ago," Jane Sarasohn-Kahn said, "the most important things on American voters' minds were the war and health care. Two days ago, the most important thing on American voters' minds is the economy. Health care and the war have taken a backseat."
This doesn't mean however, that health care plays second fiddle to the attendees of the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco this week - it's still their driving force. The rules of engagement however, as Clay Shirky pointed out in his keynote on Wednesday, are changing.
Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations, considers Health 2.0 to be the new economics of aggregation - both information and people.
Speaking to a standing-room-only audience at the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco this morning, Shirky explained that in going forward, we must focus on three things: information, co-ordination and collaboration. The idea expands on his recent article Health Information Technology: A Few Years Of Magical Thinking? (with Carol Diamond), which warns the health care IT establishment against the dangers of "magical thinking."
Last week we reported on an interview that health blogger Amy Tenderich carried out with Google Health's Missy Krasner. Amy has followed up with an interview with Keith Toussaint, Senior Program Manager with Microsoft HealthVault.
As we shall see, the two tech rivals - Google and Microsoft - have much in common when it comes to their online health apps.
Leading health blogger Amy Tenderich has just posted an illuminating interview with Missy Krasner, Product Marketing Manager for Google Health. When Google Health was launched to the public in May, we at ReadWriteWeb gave it a tepid review. We concluded that Google Health was not much more than a glorified health search engine / portal. For example, there is little in the way of integration with health professionals - users need to import their own data into the service. We also raised questions about users comfort level in putting such personal data online. Tenderich's interview teases out some responses to those concerns.
Practice Fusion is a startup making waves in the health 2.0 market. The product is a free, web-based EMR (electronic medical record) system for physicians. It runs in the browser and has been marketed as a 'Google Apps for doctors', providing patient management, scheduling, secure email and more.
The business model is largely serving ads, which allows the product to be free - although users can pay $250 $100 per month for an ad-free version. The company has just announced it has signed up 1,300 medical professionals since launch in November of 2007 and is currently serving "more than a quarter million patients."
One of the most interesting aspects of Web 2.0 these days is how it's beginning to create change in 'the real world'. While geek-friendly apps like FriendFeed, Twitter and Google Reader get a lot of attention in our little world, there is a whole other world out there in which the Web is making a difference. One very important example is healthcare. Check out the video below. It's about diabetes in the Internet age, but its message is relevant to the entire healthcare industry.
Today Google announced the public availability of Google Health, after initially launching as a closed beta back in February. It is described as "a safe and secure way to collect, store, and manage [your] medical records and health information online" and is being positioned as a way for users to control their own medical records.
Google Health is a decent entry into the game-changing (and potentially hugely profitable) world of health 2.0. But in comparison with other health startups, Google Health has a limited scope and is not as innovative a service as we've come to expect from Google...
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