OrganizedWisdom Health Blog

The Wisdom of Patients

Respected health economist Jane Sarasohn-Kahn and the California Health Foundation have published an inspiring new report with a title I love: The Wisdom of Patients. Sarasohn-Kahn investigates the ways social media are empowering patients and providers to collaborate in new ways -- a collaboration we often call "Health 2.0." Among her findings:

• People in search of health answers are often willing to trade off aspects of their privacy if a site makes clear how their information will be used.
• Online social networks can be sources of misinformation, but good online communities are self-correcting.
• Consumers are smart enough not to rely on a single source of information on health topics.
• Emotional support is nice, but online health audiences want information first.
• Consumers will pay for online health content they perceive as trustworthy and valuable to them personally.
• As a business, Health 2.0 is still emerging, with a number of different models in use.
• Health 2.0 is a disruptive force, changing the interactions among patients, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and other actors on the healthcare stage.

The report also includes profiles of Health 2.0 players like diabetes blogger Amy Tenderich and Matthew Zachary of I'm Too Young For This!. Well worth reading -- download it here.

OrganizedWisdom Hiring Health Writers

The OrganizedWisdom Health team is growing and we're thrilled with the people joining the human-powered search movement each day.  We're assembling an amazing team of Online Health Advocates, Expert Searchers, and Physician Reviewers, and we continue to add more Health Guides to our team all the time.

We are also looking to hire great Health Writers to work on some exciting projects related to our WisdomCards.  If you are an experienced medical/health writer/blogger/journalist with exceptional grammar and ability to write about complex health topics in a way that most people can understand (USA Today vs. Scientific Journal style), then we want to speak with you this week.  We're looking for people who have a passion for writing about a variety of health related topics as well as the ability to write short/snippets packed with useful information. 

If this sounds like something you are interested in, please contact us with a brief resume and some writing samples (links to blog posts are fine too).  Most importantly, we want to hear about why you want to join the OganizedWisdom team.  We're looking for passionate people who care about our mission of improving the quality of online health information and how it is organized.

New, Dynamic Home Page for OrganizedWisdom

We've been doing a lot of great work here at OrganizedWisdom, if I do say so myself, and this week we launched a new home page that gives us more of a chance to showcase that work. New features include:

• The latest Health News WisdomCards
• Showcases for sponsored "decks" of WisdomCards
• The most recent WisdomCards in each category
• Refined and updated category list
• Featured WisdomCards on important or timely health topics

As always, we invite you to search for health wisdom on our site, and Request Wisdom if you don't find what you wanted. Thanks for visiting!

Will the future of health search be mapped to your DNA?

We think so. And we'll be speaking more about this concept tonight on a panel with John Doerr called Personalized Genomic Health: New Paradigms, New Industry. 

The discussion is about new paradigms with personalized genetics.  We are going to be introducing a concept that I think will have a dramatic long-term impact on education/personalized information especially as it relates to health search.  Today we have local search, and we have tailored search based on your interests and behaviors.  And we have algorithms and we have expert guides. It starts to get even more interesting if you consider this: the new local search will be information/education and search results that are actually personalized to your DNA/Genome.  I think it is a big idea that OrganizedWisdom will be working on in the coming years to help people get better health information tailored specifically to their needs and interests.

If you're in NYC, hope to see you at the event. There will be a lot of discussion around this concept and it's implications. If you can't attend, feel free to share your feedback or ask questions in the comments...

Personalized Health Information Based on Your Genome

Navigenics Health Compass is launching this week in NYC at a series of events and panel discussions called DNANYC.  OrganizedWisdom Health is thrilled to participate on the panel Personalized Genomic Health: New Paradigms, New Industry this Thursday evening.  Steven Krein will join John Doerr, David Agus, MD, and Dean Ornish MD  to focus on the impact these new services will have health care services and health information.

As more people use services like Navigenics Health Compass or 23andMe.com, they will need personalized information and education to help them better understand their genomic report. One reason the service from Navigenics is so interesting is because it provides 24/7 access to a team of Genetic Counselors to help explain what your genetic analysis means and support you in knowing how to take next steps. OrganizedWisdom is supporting this concept by developing WisdomCards on each of the relevant SNP Codes and health conditions currently mapped by the reports. Get your genome mapped, and use OrganizedWisdom's WisdomCards to research more about each of the specific conditions in your report.

Personalized health information tailored for an individual is here.  Just like people want specific information tailored to their location and interests, they will be able to get education and WisdomCards that map to their human genome. 

Pretty amazing where this is all going.  And it's only just the beginning.   

EconHealth Video: Emerging Models in Health 2.0

OrganizedWisdom's Steven Krein participated on the EconHealth Panel last month moderated by Michael Mason, Health Editor, NYTimes.com.

You can watch the video below of the discussion Steve participated in, as well as get access to all of the videos from the seminar including Steve Case's key note check here.

Panelists included: Raj Amin, CEO and co-founder, HealthiNation; Steven H. Krein, CEO and co-founder, OrganizedWisdom; Daniel Palestrant, CEO, Sermo; Dean Stephens, president & COO, Healthline.

Easy Access to Related WisdomCards

Every WisdomCard on OrganizedWisdom features a handy list of related WisdomCards to help you explore topics that may shed light on your original search.

Now we've moved the top three up to the right column, so you can move right away if you realize that one of these terms is closer to the one you want.

It's a little change, but we like it -- and we hope you will too.

How To Avoid Internet Health Scams - 5 Tips To Protect Yourself From Malicious Health Info

One of the main reasons we decided to build OrganizedWisdom Health is to help people get health information they can trust -- and weed out all of the Web sites that may be malicious, spam index, or out right quackery.

We just published an article on this topic over at Internet Evolution.  You can read the full piece here titled, "Quack Alert: Avoiding Internet Health Scams".

Here are five quick steps informed consumers should take to protect themselves from malicious health information:

1. Start your medical researching at trusted Health Search engines like OrganizedWisdom, Healthline, or Healia.
2. Use trusted health sites that have been certified by accreditation directory URAC or feature HONcode seals on the homepage.
3. Check the source of the information to see if it is sponsored or trying to sell something.
4. Tell your doctor about the online health resources you typically use and ask him or her to recommend medical resources.   
5. Ask your local politicians and representatives to strengthen laws against medical fraud and resources for enforcement.

Find What You're Looking For With OW Search Suggest

OrganizedWisdom now offers a "search suggest" feature to help you refine your searches and point you toward WisdomCards you might not even know we had! I could explain how it works, but a picture does a better job:

Give it a try and see for yourself -- I find it makes my searches on OW a lot faster!