The Health Wisdom Blog™ (by OrganizedWisdom)

Health 2.0 Conference Interview of CEO Steven Krein

How Health 2.0 May Push the Government Forward

One of my favorite NPR programs Talk of the Nation, featured Don Tapscott today in a discussion called Government 2.0 - Building An Online Democracy.

Mr. Tapscott, author of Wikinomics and Paradigm Shift, mentioned health care, and several Health 2.0 companies including OrgnanizedWisdom, Sermo and DailyStrength, as examples of companies who are helping shape the future of healthcare and ultimately serve as powerful examples the government should follow.

It's an interesting conversation worth a listen if you have a few minutes...Listen to the program here.

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.

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.

VentureBeat Features OrganizedWisdom at Health 2.0

We're happy to be one of only six companies from more than 50 attending Health 2.0 to be featured in David Hamilton's VentureBeat post today titled: Six Health 2.0 firms reinvent doctor-patient ties.

Here's a snippet from the post:

OrganizedWisdom already has an established presence in Health 2.0 with its “human-powered” medical search engine, a Mahalo-like attempt to bring expert attention to search requests. The startup essentially lets people search through precompiled “wisdom cards,” each vetted by medical experts, that list reliable resources on diseases and drugs along with recent news headlines, treatment alternatives, support groups and message boards, and research findings.

OrganizedWisdom now plans to supplement that information with a new service it calls Live Wisdom, in which anyone can chat online with a medical professional for $1.99 a minute. CEO Steve Krein demonstrated what he described as an actual chat between a patient just diagnosed with laryngeal cancer and a doctor, in which the two discussed treatment options and probable outcomes — and even the physician’s response when the patient asked, “Am I going to die?” (The cure rate for an early-stage cancer turns out to be pretty good, the doctor replied.)

Click here to read the complete article and learn about Carol, Myca, AmericanWell, Phreesia, and Pharma Surveyor.

OrganizedWisdom Introduces LiveWisdom: Connecting People with Doctors Should be Easy, Affordable, and Accessible to All

We've just returned from the second Health 2.0 conference that took place in San Diego earlier this week.  It was a tremendous event with standing room only, as was to be expected given Indu Subaiya and Matthew Holt organized it. 

Over 30 companies presented and hundreds more attended.  The networking was fantastic and we were happy to meet with so many other thought leaders, friends and colleagues in the Health 2.0 world.  Some highlights included Esther Dyson showing us 23andMe in action, spending quality time with Adam Bosworth (formally Google Health now Keas.com), participating in the Unconference, announcing the dCard at the Health 2.0 Accelerator, learning more from Susannah Fox, working with IDEO, catching up with Craig Stoltz, finally meeting David Hamilton from Venture Beat in person, doing video interviews with ICYou.com crew, finalizing details with Cheryl Greene from DrGreene.com, convos with Scott Schreve David Kibbe, and Enoch Choi, hearing from Josh Seidman that the next Information Therapy Conference will be in DC, and having drinks with East Coast friends Bill Allman from Health CentralNetwork, Paul Gollash from Virgin, Jack Barrette from WEGOHealth, Jay Parkinson from Myca. The list goes on and on...

But the highlight for us was presenting LiveWisdom for the first time.   

On stage with AmericanWell and Jay Parkinson, OrganizedWisdom demoed something we are extremely excited about and believe will help change health care forever.  We launched LiveWisdom, a new Live Chat and Email service that is currently in a beta pilot and will soon be integrated on all of our WisdomCards.

LiveWisdom enables people to chat LIVE and anonymously with a board-certified doctor, health professional or health advocate for only a $1.99 a minute.  Yep, $1.99 a minute.  We are brining micro payments to health care so that anyone (insured or not) can at least ask a doctor a question when they need to.  LiveWisdom is embedded directly into WisdomCards so that people can ask important questions or get additional information directly related to the health topics they are searching on at the time.  It's that simple. 

We believe that connecting with doctors should be easy, affordable, and accessible to all.  There are millions of people who have questions they need answered quickly, privately, and from the convenience of their own home.  LiveWisdom is not meant to replace a doctor visit, like the service AmericanWell will provide, but people often have important questions that a live chat with a doctor could quickly answer.  If more information or an actual visit to a doctor is required then we can refer people to American Well, Myca,  a local mediclinic, hospital or doctor depending on the situation.

(Click to read what VentureBeat had to say about our new service).

In the coming weeks, we will be expanding the service and integrating LiveWisdom into all of our WisdomCards so that people who are searching for important health information will now have access to a doctor.  If you are a board-certified doctor or health professional and are interested in joining our LiveWisdom program please contact us at info at organizedwisdom dot com.

Meet with the OrganizedWisdom Team at Health 2.0

We just finished meeting with David Kibbe and Indu Subaiya to review our forthcoming presentation we'll be giving at next week's Health 2.0 conference in San Diego.

We're thrilled to be demoing for the second time (I believe we are the only company attending to hold such an honor!) at this amazing event. We can't wait to show the group how we will be evolving our WisdomCards and even more importantly, we can't wait to introduce these new features to our users over the coming weeks. 

Next week, we'll post more about these features and how they will help our users so be sure to check back.   We'll also post several updates about the exciting new companies and people we meet at Health 2.0.

The past few months have been very exciting for OrganizedWisdom and we couldn't be happier with the progress we're making.  Because of an amazing team effort, we've managed to beat our own aggressive projections, and have already created WisdomCards to cover more than 8,000 of the most important health searches.  And, we're only just beginning.  Additionally, user feedback for our new WisdomCard design has been tremendous.  What do you think?

If you're planning on attending Health 2.0 we'd love to meet up with you and see how we may be able to work together.  And if you can't make it, then we look forward to getting your feedback about the new services we'll be launching on OrganizedWisdom Health and connecting with you online.

Health 2.0 Northeast kickoff

Thanks to F. Mark Modzelewski and the others who put together last night's networking and panel discussion in Cambridge! Above you see Steve Krein, me, and Unity Stoakes. I was fascinated by the wide range of companies out there, and got to meet some great people, including Shannon Brownlee, author of Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer.

Health 2.0 Northeast!

OrganizedWisdom co-founder and CEO Steve Krein will be among the panelists at the Health 2.0 Northeast forum being held in Cambridge, Mass. today. (Well, tomorrow, but it'll most likely be "today" -- Wednesday -- by the time you read this.)

David E. Williams of the Health Business Blog has a good writeup of the event here. Steve's partner, Unity Stoakes, will be there, and so will I! I'm looking forward to meeting some of the excellent people I've been hearing about as we keep building OrganizedWisdom's quality and reach.

I believe last-minute registrations are still being accepted at healthforum2.com. Hope to see some of you there!