The Health Wisdom Blog™ (by OrganizedWisdom)

Steven Krein Interview at Health 2.0

Health 2.0 Opening Video from ScribeMedia

The folks who produce the Digital Health Revolution over at ScribeMedia created a well done video titled the History of Medicine to help kick of yesterday's Health 2.0 conference in San Fransisco.

Click here to check it out.

We've heard that there will be a number of segments and interviews from the conference that will be coming soon...

The Health Care Blog Liveblogging Health 2.0 Conference

Liveblogging here: http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/

Here's the post abut the social media panel OrganizedWisdom participated on.

And here's another take on the session from Francine Hardaway's Blog.

For more live blogging from the event check out health blogger Bob Coffield's posts here.

And, better yet, you can watch video of panel discussions and interviews here.

Health 2.0 Conference

I'm sitting here at the Health 2.0 conference and it's amazing to see how far the industry has come in 1 year. When we first launched OrganizedWisdom we were teaching everyone what this whole space is about and how we're going change healthcare 1 day at a time. First panel is the big guys (Google, Yahoo, WebMD and Microsoft). I'm itching to get to the panels where we'll see where the real innovation is going to come from.

Should be an interesting day. My panel and my demo is at 11:15. If you're here, make sure to introduce yourself. It's a huge room so if you're facing the stage, I'm at about 3 o'clock.

See You At Health 2.0 in San Francisco

Steven Krein will be presenting the new OrganizedWisdom tomorrow for the first time at the Health 2.0 conference.  He's just finished up a bunch of meetings at the TechCrunch 40 event, and is on Sand Hill Road now in a a bunch of other meetings we're pretty excited about.

We've gotten a lot of interesting feedback about our new site and some great questions and comments.

One of the biggest questions we've been getting is: Why did we decide to evolve our model so much over the past year and a half?

We'll be blogging a lot about this in the coming weeks, because we hope our insights will be useful to other entrepreneurs and others in the Health 2.0 space.

We have some amazing lessons learned about what has worked really well and what hasn't worked so well, and we'll be sharing them on this blog as things settle down a bit and we get a minute to breathe.

In the meantime, if you happen to be at the Health 2.0 conference please stop by and say hi to Steve.  We want to hear what you have to say, get your feedback, and find out how we can work together.

90% of Women Use Internet to Search for Health Info

There's another interesting survey  from Burst Media which tells us more of what we already know:

People are going to the Internet first to search for health information.

In fact, the research shows that the internet - rather than healthcare professionals - is now by far US households' main source for healthcare information, and women more frequently than men seek such information.

Click here to get a lot more of the statistics from the report.

So we know people are going to the Internet to search for health information first.  But, are they finding what they want and is the information they are finding credible, trustworthy, and useful? 

For those who are adept at searching online, we suspect that they are eventually finding great information.  That's because there is so much great health information available online now.  There's also a lot of wisdom and practical advice from patients and ordinary people with experience. 

But from our experience this information is becoming increasingly more difficult to find.  We know because that's what our health guides do all day -- they search for the very best health content, resources, and wisdom to find the very best stuff.  The challenge is, it can take hours to wade through hundreds of links to find the very best message board on a topic.  Or to discern if a blog post is from a credible source or not.  Or to search page after page of search results only to get links to the very same content, but on a different Web site.

The good news is that there are now really great health resources online.  Most of them freely accessible and many that have been reviewed by physicians.  The key is finding the best stuff.

We're now creating WisdomCards, or search results pages, for hundreds of the most popular health topics.  We're trying to do the work for you, and clean up a lot of the clutter along the way.

Here's an example of a WisdomCard we have created on the topic of Breast Cancer.

Here's the same search on Google:

And on Technorati.

We'd love your feedback on which one you would want to send your family to and why or why not?

With so many people now turning to the Internet first, it's essential to clean up health search and give people great, organized results.

OrganizedWisdom Unveils the World's First Human-Powered, Doctor-Guided Search Service for Health

New Health Search Engine Weeds out Spam Sites, Redundant Links and Clutter by Using People to Find and Organize the Best Health Resources on the Web

New York, NY - Monday, September 17, 2007 – OrganizedWisdom, LLC, a leader in the Health 2.0 movement, today unveiled its new web search platform and launched OrganizedWisdom Health, the first human-powered, doctor-guided search service for health.

Launching in beta for early user feedback, the new site at OrganizedWisdom.com features a custom health search engine curated by trained search experts and guided by a team of specialized physicians. The service provides credible, well-organized search results pages for the most popular health search terms, without the clutter, redundant links or index spam typically found in search engines.

When you search for topics such as weight loss, melanoma or hair loss on OrganizedWisdom Health, human editors have assembled an organized page for each topic, called a WisdomCard™. Only quality links to expert and user-generated content are listed, without the clutter you often see in search results at Google or Technorati that are often marketing sites trying to sell products or spam sites masquerading as authentic blogs.

“No other search engine has physicians guiding every search result to provide an additional level of quality review,” said Howard Krein, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer of OrganizedWisdom Health. “Machine-generated results like Google's or Technorati's change by the minute and are easily manipulated by search index spammers so it’s impossible to nail down something to review. With humans hand-crafting the results, we can do that. Each and every WisdomCard has been reviewed thoroughly by two different Health editors and at least one physician.”

“The goal of OrganizedWisdom Health is to provide the best search service in the world for health by hand-crafting search results that physicians and consumers will recommend to their family and friends,” said Steven Krein, co-founder and CEO of OrganizedWisdom.

OrganizedWisdom Health is focused on creating WisdomCards for the top search terms and phrases for health including diseases, conditions, treatments and drugs. The site is launching with WisdomCards on more than 100 of the most popular health topics, with plans to create 10,000 WisdomCards over the next 12 months. OrganizedWisdom editors have also built into the service a customized version of Google, which only includes approved sites, ensuring that every query on OrganizedWisdom Health delivers spam-free search results.

“OrganizedWisdom Health also taps into the wisdom of our site visitors to help improve the results,” said Unity Stoakes, president and co-founder of OrganizedWisdom. “Anyone can suggest links they feel are missing and deserve to be included on a WisdomCard, and can report or discuss any links they feel should be removed. Each suggestion is reviewed and monitored by our guides to ensure that only quality links are added to the search results themselves.”

Last year Krein and Stoakes, both serial entrepreneurs, launched OrganizedWisdom as a destination site for sharing health wisdom. They quickly discovered, however, that there was plenty of user-generated health information already online, but easily finding that useful information was the real problem. The duo dramatically transformed their strategy to solve this problem.

Krein co-founded Internet marketing firm Promotions.com in 1996, and with Stoakes took it to an IPO in 1999, followed by a sale to iVillage in 2002. Stoakes was the Chief Marketing Officer at Promotions.com and the VP of Marketing at The Privacy Council.

ABOUT ORGANIZEDWISDOM HEALTH

OrganizedWisdom® Health is the first human-powered, doctor-guided search service for health. The site at http://organizedwisdom.com provides reviewed, well-organized search result pages called WisdomCards™, for the most popular health search terms and phrases without the clutter, redundant links or index spam typically found in search engines. OrganizedWisdom helped ignite the Health 2.0 revolution with several “firsts” including the first company to assemble a team of health guides and physicians to organize the world’s best health wisdom from across the Web. Today, OrganizedWisdom continues to bring innovation to online health care by leveraging social media and the power of collaboration technologies to improve the quality of health search. OrganizedWisdom is based in New York City and was founded in 2006 by serial entrepreneurs Steven Krein and Unity Stoakes, who have worked together building companies since 1997.

eMarketer Says Pharma Failing at Web 2.0

In case you didn't see this research from eMarketer:

DESPITE ACCOUNTING FOR AN EVER-INCREASING share of online ad spending, the pharmaceutical industry is still failing to embrace the Web 2.0 strategies that could help it better engage consumers looking for health care assistance, according to eMarketer research.

The new study, "Pharmaceutical Marketing Online: Stuck in Web 1.5," projected that the pharmaceutical category--which includes hospitals, drug companies and other health care services--will account for 5% of Internet advertising by 2011, or $2.2 billion. Last year the industry was responsible for $820 million, or 4.9%, and is on track to ring in $975 million this year, or 4.5% of total Web spend.

But most of that money is still going to traditional Web 1.0 ventures that provide only limited interactions with users. "[By] restricting their brand sites to simple online information centers, pharma marketers are missing opportunities to engage consumers and boost compliance," the study said.

The study's author, eMarketer senior analyst Lisa Phillips, said Pharma's slow adoption of Web 2.0 strategies like blogs, social networks and broadband video can be attributed to its conservative approach to advertising in general and to government restrictions.

Read the full article at Online Media Daily here.

If Google Buys Web MD...

So there's lots more gossip flying around about the potential of Google acquiring WebMD.

This would be interesting for several reasons.

1) It would indicate that Google has plans to become much more of a content, publishing company (ala Yahoo!) than sticking to its core focus of organizing the world's information.

2) It would likely mean that Google really didn't have any other health initiatives going on after all, or the ones they did have in the works internally never got off the ground.

3) It would create a massive opportunity for other health care companies and start-ups because Yahoo!, Microsoft, and others would be hungry to keep up.

Regardless, there is no doubt that September is proving to be a very big news month for online health care and I suspect the rest of the year will only heat up.

Google Health Executive Adam Bosworth Leaves, Heavyweight Marissa Mayer Takes the Helm

Google's health initiatives have been a mystery for many months now.  That's because they keep talking about the importance of organizing health information, but to date we haven't seen any major new products launch or acquisitions take place. 

So what does this week's news that effective immediately, Google exec Adam Bosworth has left the company, mean to the future of Google Health?

For starters Google's head of the core search group, Marissa Mayer will (at least temporarily) take the helm. Which is probably a good sign since she is one of the most influential and important executives on the Google team. The company is clearly taking this change seriously, whether Bosworth's exit was expected or not. 

In our opinion, having Google in the game promoting innovation in health care is a great thing.  They have the talent and deep pockets to promote great ideas, entrepreneurs, and new companies. This is not only a great thing for their company, but also for others in the burgeoning Health 2.0 space because we all benefit when we are propelling each other forward.

Having Google paying attention to health care innovation is also critical to health searchers. With so many people starting their search at Google now, it is essential that visitors get credible, quality search results. 

As we have blogged about extensively about this trend (here, here, here), because the quality of search from resources like Google is now in shambles.  Spammers, clutter, and marketers are really taking a toll on the quality of their search results, especially in the area of health.

We hope and look forward to Google continuing to innovate in health care and support other companies that are working hard to find better ways to solve these same challenges.

White Paper Provides Strategy to Help Drug Firms Leverage Social Media Safely

Over the past year and a half, we have met with marketing executives, compliance officers, and lawyers from more than 20 of the world's top pharmaceutical companies to discuss how they could and should be using social media to join the conversation and connect better with patients.

We felt there was (and still is) a significant opportunity for them to leverage the power of social media to share information and education to try and bridge the massive divide that currently exists between Big Pharma and the people who buy their products.

But meeting after meeting, we would be met with resistance to the effect of, "We don't do social media; We don't want to lose control; We can't use blogs..." and so on.

Being the resilient entrepreneurial types that we are, we pressed on determined to convince these companies that a healthy dose of transparency and openness would go a long way in improving relations with customers. We even developed a presentation called Pharma-Friendly Social Media to try and bridge the gap between these companies and their customers. Still, it was always an uphill battle trying to get these companies to start listening and communicating to their own customers. (If they listen, they might learn about adverse events, which is a big no-no.  Then they have to file lots of paperwork and disclose issues that may impact their drugs, etc.).

One of the biggest challenges was that the FDA has yet to issue guidance on how to conduct monitoring and marketing practices in social media so pharmaceutical companies are unsure how to proceed. And as we quickly learned, no one wants to be the guinea pig with new innovations in the pharmaceutical industry. And for good reason, Big Pharma must be cautious, conservative, and follow the letter of the law.

It is unclear when or if the FDA will issue guidance on the many new issues that have come up as a result of social media, the Internet, and online marketing. Until the waters settle, we recommend each company take baby steps and get involved. Bring your marketing teams and compliance teams together to figure out how to take the first steps.

And step one should be reading this new White Paper just co-authored by Fard Johnmar from Envision Solutions.

The Difference Between Web 2.0 and Health 2.0 Movement

Healthcare blogger Scott Shreve, MD has a well thought out post today that does a great job of outlining the differences between Health 1.0 and 2.0 and outlines how the Health 2.0 movement differs from Web 2.0. See the charts below and click here to read his complete post which is well worth the read.

Only An Inch Down The Road Of Organizing The World's Information

Seth Godin has a great post today about the numerous opportunities and need to better organize information today.

It's easy to be wowed by what a magical job the search engines do in finding you just the right needle in the haystack.

The fact is that search engines are very good at fairly simple searches, and very good at finding information about single products, services, people and ideas.

But they're terrible at connections, at rankings, at horizontal results. They can't help me find the 25 most important up and coming artists in the United States. They can't help me find six products that are viable alternatives to something that was just discontinued. They can't help me rank the service of four accounting firms.

People are starting to organize real estate data, entertainment content, and reviews in really interesting ways.  And a few new health companies (including OrgnaizedWisdom Health) are just getting started at organizing the world's health information. There's a seemingly endless amount of work to be done, but thanks to the power of collaboration and social media we have a feeling things are about to get a whole lot more useful in how people find the most useful health wisdom and resources.

Look for our official OrganizedWisdom announcement about how we intend to solve this problem later this week.

MedBillManager Makes The Wall Street Journal

There's a great article in the September 4th issue of the Wall Street Journal about new services that are helping consumers better manage their medical bills.  Several of our good friends were featured including MedBillManager.com, WebMD, and Revolution Health.

Read the full article here: Slew of Online Tools Let Consumers Create and Manage Their Digital Records;
Typing It In Yourself

We were particularly happy to see MedBillManager featured.  If you haven't met Christopher Parks yet, one of the founders of MedbillManager and you care about the Health 2.0 space than you really should.  He is one of the most passionate people in the space and he is on a mission to truly improve people's lives based on his own experience and challenges with the health care system when taking care of his parents. They continue to innovate tirelessly and it is great to see their hard work making a difference in people's lives.

Congrats to all featured in the article and we look forward to seeing you a;; at the Health 2.0 conference this month.

New Facebook Group for Health 2.0

Even though Matthew Holt's upcoming Health 2.0 Conference this month is sold out, you can still participate by joining the new Health 2.0 Group on Facebook here.  Looks like there are about 63 members already, and I'm sure by the time the conference ends there will be several hundred more. It doesn't look like there is much activity yet, but it looks like it could be a useful communication tool for all of us in the space.

OrganizedWisdom Featured in The Economist: Health 2.0 Picks Up Steam

The past 18 months or so have been a tremendous whirlwind of innovation, trial and error, new ideas, change and progress in the online healthcare space -- what many now call Health 2.0.

Dozens of new companies have launched and secured funding from venture capitalists. Consumers continue to use the Internet as a critical tool to manage their health care.  We now have our own Health 2.0 conference this month that is sold out! And the most influential media outlets are now covering this trend.

This week's Economist Magazine has a full-page trend piece by Jeanette Borzo titled, Health 2.0: Technology and society: Is the outbreak of cancer videos, bulimia blogs and other forms of “user generated” medical information a healthy trend?" which OrganizedWisdom was happy to be featured in.

From the article:

To gauge the size of this snowball, look at OrganizedWisdom, a firm based in New York. It launched in October 2006 as a health-care Wikipedia of sorts: a site to which consumers could contribute their own nuggets of health wisdom. Yet after only a few months it transformed itself into an index of the existing web content. The firm's founders had discovered that there already was quite enough user-generated health information online; the real problem was finding the good stuff.

The explosion of user-generated content in health care is, in part, the result of broader internet trends: more and more people have broadband access and the tools for creating content are getting easier to use. New software, for instance, makes it easy to launch and maintain a site such as FluWikie (which provides information about preparing for an influenza pandemic), and digital cameras make it a snap to take and upload photos of, say, epigastric hernia surgery.

But there are other drivers, too. Those with multiple chronic conditions, such as diabetes and depression, or lesser-known illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome, are anxious to get tips from others in similar situations.

Other Health Bloggers who we respect have already been blogging about it (here and here) and with the upcoming Health 2.0 Conference (which we'll be speaking at), we suspect there will be a lot more conversation this month on the topic of how technology, social media and collaboration can help improve some of today's most challenging health care issues.

Index Spam, Melanoma and Google

Do a search for "what is melanoma" in Google today and the first link on the very first page is something called index spam. (Yes, index spam.) Most people still think spam is only when you get junk mail in your email box. Unfortunately, that's not the case anymore.

INDEX SPAM is when web site owners themselves or through the "black hat" search engine optimizers they hire, get their undeserving sites listed at the top of Google and other machine-generated search engines. This highjacking of the search results is done by taking advantage of the algorithm. They are able to do this because machines, not humans, make the determination of what is included in your search results.

It's amazing to me that in late 2007, here you are researching a serious, life-threatening cancer and in your very first search on the very first page in the very first link, you get hit with Index Spam

Here it is for your very own eyes to see...the first link in google's search results for "What is Melanoma":/





If you click that, you are brought to a definitions page, which has been planted to drive you to this site:





The final result: a useless link with useless information with no value whatsoever. And that, my friend, is Index Spam.

Click Here to View

People are the new software. They are the algorithm.

Great quote in today's email newsletter, Steve Harmon's Innovation Report, 2008:

“People are the new software. They are the new algorithm.... Clutter-free is in. Clean is back. Ad-free information, like a park bench without graffiti, a restroom without gang scribbles. Seeds of change are planted today and I think 2008 will pave new ground for new ideas, better ways and means. New names and players emerging.”