The 5 Trends That Will Impact Consumer Health Care Most

“The Internet has matured to a point where the millions of people seeking medical information can prepare themselves for a serious medical encounter with speed and confidence.”  So concludes Staff Writer Craig Stoltz, in his compelling article today in the Washington Post.

Read the full article here.

Mr. Stoltz walks readers through his recent real-life experience searching for health information online.  Braced for a barrage of bad information, he writes, “I was surprised to find how easy it was under real-life conditions to find credible, useful information without advanced surfing skills.” 

And that’s good news for consumers, considering (as Shultz also points out) research shows that as many as 80 percent of Internet users have searched for personal health information online. 

Shultz identified some real areas for improvement such as the ad-clutter he experienced on WebMD, and marketing links that didn’t provide quality information. But we couldn’t agree more that the easy availability of credible health information, useful search tools from companies like Google, and quality information providers like Medline-Plus are providing a critical, if not essential service to consumers.  (And perhaps we are more critical than Shultz was, but we feel that searching for health information should be even easier than it already is. See our recent post on this issue here). 

But What About The Future of Online Health?  Here’s The Top 5 Trends That We Believe Will Impact Online Health Over the Next 10 Years… 

All this reflection on the past decade (let’s call it “Online Health 1.0”) got us jazzed about what progress we can expect as a result of innovation over the next 10 years (“Online Health 2.0 and beyond”). 

What is the future of online health? What new innovations can we expect? What trends will impact the industry? And most importantly, how will the next 10 years impact consumers and provide solutions for better health? 

We’ll be writing a lot more about (and more importantly building a Company to address) these issues, but briefly here are the 5 key trends that will impact consumer health care over the next 10 years…and ultimately help all of us. 

1) Social networks will connect patients, medical professionals, health care providers, health organizations and companies like never before. These efficiencies will create better information, save time, money and hopefully lives.

2) Collaboration among consumers, medical professionals, health providers, organizations and products companies will help everyone get better information, products and services at reduced prices.   

3) User-generated content will be organized, structured, rated, reviewed, and integrated with professionally created health information to create the world’s most comprehensive health knowledgebase…one that assembles the health wisdom of crowds.   

4) New regulations will help consumers and health care providers educate each other.  Health care providers and pharmaceutical companies will be given the green light to join the dialog online as progressive government regulators, compliance officers, and lawyers will make it advisable for health care companies to participate in and join the dialog with consumers to provide their most valuable education, research and information.

5) The long-tail of health care will continue to expand as innovative companies create more profitable markets for better health information and niche focused products and services. 

We’d love to hear your thoughts about these trends, or any suggestions you have about the future of online health. Post your comments below…