The Health Wisdom Blog™ (by OrganizedWisdom)

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!

Speaking at Health 2.0 North East and 7th Annual ePharma Summit

Connecting online is great, but if you happen to be attending one of these events, we'd love to meet you in person to speak about Health 2.0, trends in health care, and how we may be able to work together to keep improving the health care system.

We're looking forward to speaking at several upcoming conferences...we'll continue to post our schedule as it fills up:

Steven Krein will speak on a panel discussion at the upcoming Health 2.0 NorthEast networking event in Boston, on January 23.  Matthew Holt will keynote the event, and Indu Subaiya mentioned she would also be in attendance.  (I am hoping to attend as well along with our Editor, Pat Washburn).

Later this month, I'll be speaking at the 7th Annual ePharma Summit in Philadelphia, PA on January 30th.  The  panel, Social Media, Blogs and User Generated Content: What's Working Today, What Will Work Tomorrow?, will be moderated by Bob Harrell, Director, eMarketing, SHIRE PHARMACEUTICALS.

Panelists include Jack Barrette, CEO, MOVINGHEALTH; Brad Aronson, Executive Vice President, aQUANTIVE, parent company of AVENUE A|RAZORFISH; Melissa Davies, Research Director, Healthcare Practice, NIELSEN BUZZMETRICS; Daniel Palestrant, MD, CEO, SERMO; Kevin Nalty, Consumer-Generated Media Expert, Formerly with J&J and Unity Stokes, Co-Founder and President, ORGANIZED WISDOM.

If we don't see you at one of these events, feel free to follow our OrganizedWisdom Twitter feed and we will keep you updated with our posts.

Salon.com: Is there a doctor in the mouse?

It's great to be recognized for the important strides we are making to help patients navigate the complex and ever-changing world of online health information. It makes it especially great when an article written by a doctor points out that physicians themselves need just as much help figuring out the online health landscape.

Check out a great Health 2.0 article today "Is there a doctor in the mouse?" by Rahul K. Parikh, MD in online magazine Salon.com.

Dr. Parikh frames the problem:

The medical establishment...has taken way too much time to understand that the Internet is a disruptive innovation that has overturned the status quo. It has leveled the playing field between expert and novice -- in this case, doctor and patient. While some doctors ... may find that challenge threatening to their status as an expert, the Web is now providing the kind of information doctors need to be aware of if we want to continue to be good at our job, and the kind of trends that can help patients be smarter and healthier.

He describes the difference between OrganizedWisdom and Google

One example is Organized Wisdom, a search engine for medical issues. What gives it an edge over general search engines like Google and Yahoo is that its content is vetted by health professionals. If you type "autism" into Organized Wisdom, you'll receive an organized set of links to reliable sites that allow you to look at the symptoms of autism, potential treatments, research studies, and support groups. If you do the same using Google, the first site you'll see is Autism.org. If you click the link, you'll be taken to a page sponsored by groups preaching that vaccines are unsafe and favoring "alternative" treatments that are untested and potentially dangerous.

He wraps it up nicely...

Patients who, prior to a visit, consult information online can better share in the decision-making process with their doctor. Afterward, they can go online to find information that reinforces their decision or introduces them to viable alternatives.

Be a Health 2.0 Star

Posting this on behalf of the cool people at the Health 2.0 conference:

We are excited to announce a new panel format at our Spring Health 2.0 conference, "Connecting Consumers and Providers" in San Diego on March 3-4, 2008. In addition to spotlighting demos and reactions from industry experts, we will be capturing the user-experience of people living with health conditions as they use Health 2.0 technologies in their everyday lives.

Has the web changed your life? Does it help you deal with the isolation of a condition or improve your quality of life in some other way? We are looking for a few good consumers/patients to feature live on stage or in a video segment. Our roving video crew will be traveling the country to document interesting real-life stories showing how Health 2.0 impacts both people and the healthcare system.

And for those of you budding videographers, we are also accepting user-generated video clips that show how you are using Health 2.0 technologies in your daily life. Maybe it's an active online community where you've found support, a portable medical device, an online tracking tool, a blog, a video game, a virtual world, or some combination of the above. If you have something to say, we'd love to hear about it so we can help you share your stories with your peers and other members of the Health 2.0 community. We welcome you to join the conversation with some of the most progressive minds in healthcare including consumers, health providers, technologists and entrepreneurs. If you are a physician using health 2.0 technologies to connect with your patients or if you know of patients for whom technology has made a real difference, please drop us a line.

Email John our resident Health 2.0 web guru/talent scout at john@health2con.com.

Radio Interview: Unity Stoakes Discusses OrganizedWisdom's Agnostic Approach to Search with the BlogSoma Docs

I did a fun radio interview last night with Dr. Mark, Dr. Jeb and Professor Val from BlogSoma.  It was an intereting conversation about OrganizedWisdom and our approach to using human guides and physician reviewers to build our WisdomCards, and the different types of health topics including wellness, lifestyle and health education topics we're making available to health seekers. 

The segment is about 30 minutes long and you can get to the segment here.

Health 2.0 Taking Off in Germany

GIGAOM has an interesting post about Health 2.0 taking off in Germany.

It will be interesting to see how different countries manage health care innovations in the coming years.  Not only are the health care systems different from country to country, but there are also cultural and regulatory differences.  In particular in regards to how patient privacy is managed.

Read the post about what's going on in Germany here.

Giving Thanks is Good for You

Thanksgiving. It's a simple concept, really -- feeling and expressing gratitude for the positive things in our lives. Religious traditions, folk wisdom and self-help books encourage us to do this, and there's even scientific evidence that suggests being grateful is good for you.

So instead of complaining about my mother-in-law's stuffing and my dad's stubbornness in the matter of wearing his hearing aids, I will choose to be grateful for the many good people in my life, and for the opportunities I have.

OrganizedWisdom is a business, but it's also a mission. I'm excited about the work we've done so far to organized the world's health wisdom. It's a job that will never be done, and that's exciting too. I'm grateful for the opportunity to bring great information to people who need it, and for the chance to be part of the Health 2.0 movement.

Most of all, I'm grateful for the wonderful, smart, hard-working people who are part of our growing team. Our beta launch was a big success. We've gotten terrific feedback from everyone who's seen the site. Our work gets better with every new person who joins us. (Want to help? Consider becoming a Guide.) We're building something awesome here, and I'm thankful to be a part of it.

Health 2.0 Raises A Glass in NYC - And Launches A Community Blog!

The Health 2.0 movement is becoming more active all the time...and this week on the East Coast.

Indu Subaiya and Matthew Holt hosted a fun evening last night in NYC for the East Coast Health 2.0 crowd. Here's a few of Indu's pictures and the rest are posted on the Health 2.0 Facebook Group here.

In addition to spending quality time with the folks from Sermo, Virgin, New York Times Health, HealthCentral Network, Fard Johnmar from The Digital Health Revolution, HealthWorldWeb, and several investors and local entrepreneurs, we got to meet the new editor of www.health2blog.com, a community Health2.0 blog we look forward to reading daily and writing for...

 

Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival

Greetings! It is my pleasure to present the latest edition of the Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival.

What's a blog carnival? It's a quick way to keep up to date on the "blogosphere" around a particular subject -- in this case, Medicine 2.0, the intersection of health care and the social Web. We had a deluge of submissions and I've tried to pick the best ones.

One of the most interesting Health 2.0 events of late is the Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting icon program, meant to identify thoughtful analysis of peer-reviewed research. I'm all for anything that makes it easier to find high-quality content online, and will be interested to see how this program plays out.

Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya, the folks who brought you the Health 2.0 conference last month, are doing it again, with another conference planned for San Diego in March.

Berci Mesko of Scienceroll, founder of this blog carnival, argues for the reliability of Wikipedia and Citizendum in a post that attracted some controversy and discussion elsewhere in the blogosphere.

 

The National Library of Medicine/NIH's new style guide includes a section on citing blogs and other information found on the Internet. Joshua Schwimmer, M.D., best known for his Kidney Notes blog, was surprised to be included as an example, and writes about the ensuing debate at Tech Medicine.

Mo at Neurophilosophy offers an interesting look at a brain-computer interface for Second Life that lets the user move an avatar without moving a muscle.

Philips has announced a device called the Cliniscape, meant to be a portable IT solution for physicians and other health care providers. It's bigger than an iPhone and smaller than a laptop. Full press release from DoctorsGadgets.

John Halamka, Chief Information Officer and Dean for Technology at Harvard Medical School, joins the ranks of bloggers at Life as a Healthcare CIO. Right now he's writing about efforts to run greener data centers. Thanks to Bob  Coffield at the Health Care Law Blog for the tip.

Social networking sites are everywhere -- it seems like every day I get another e-mail inviting me to the latest community for chihuahua-owning editors who love Renaissance music, or whatever. Disaboom.com stands out a bit from the pack -- it's aimed at people with functional limitations, and recently acquired Lovebyrd, a dating site for singles living with disabilities. Medical director is Dr. Glen House (not THAT Dr. House!), a spinal-cord injury specialist who gets some of his knowledge from his own experience as a C7 quadriplegic. Tip of the hat to JC Jones of Healthline Connects on this one.

BioMed's medical image search has relaunched, reports the Pimm -- Partial Immortalization blog.

Bioinformatics Zen offers Three stories about science and the Web. They all have happy endings.

Clinical Cases has a helpful list of medical podcasts from the BBC.

Fathom, a marketing company, has produced a list of the six best Web 2.0 health tools. I am naturally
biased toward #4, our very own OrganizedWisdom, but we're in very good company here.

How many times have you heard that Google is planning a health product? eHealth notes that the official rollout of Google Health -- a personal medical records system meant to rival Microsoft's new offering -- will be released early in 2008.

Deirdre Bonnycastle presents Active Learning - Creating Meaningful Artifacts posted at Medical Education Blog. Good overview of Web 2.0 tools and their uses in med-ed.

Carnegie-Mellon's listing of the 100 Most Informative Blogs included a couple in the medical field. GruntDoc picks them out for you.

Zagat, known for its restaurant reviews, is moving into the doctor-review space with a guide specifically focused on physicians in Blue Cross and Blue Shield's WellPoint network. Jane Sarasohn-Kahn of Health Populi notes that it won't tell you what consumers really want to know -- cost and outcome.

Jimmy Atkinson mentions social networking tools like Vimo and RateMDs in a post on How to Research a Doctor's Credentials  at Medical Tourism Guide.

Toni Brayer, M.D., of EverythingHealth was either pleased or disappointed not to find herself listed on RateMD, but had a good time looking up her colleagues and agrees that patients' experiences are going to be more and more important to understanding the quality of medical care.

One of the struggles every would-be medical student faces is writing a personal statement to go with medical-school applications. Victor Castilla of Web 2.0 and Medicine gathers up some resources to help with this sometimes daunting task.

That concludes this edition.  Submit your blog article to the next edition of <b>medicine 2.0</b> using our
carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: medicine 2.0, blog carnival

Look for Medicine 2.0 blog carnival tomorrow

I've been overwhelmed by the number and quality of posts submitted for this edition! I'll post it tomorrow as soon as I can. Thanks for your patience!

Carnival time! Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival, that is

The pace of change in the Health 2.0 world is so fast that it can be hard to keep up! That's why there's the Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival. Every two weeks, a host blog produces a roundup of recent posts about new technology, new uses for technology, and new ways of making people's health and lives better.

On Oct. 28, it'll be our turn! If you've seen (or perhaps written) a great post on health 2.0 issues recently, use the submission form to let us know about it.

The most recent edition went up yesterday at Highlight Health, and it's a great one. Host Walter Jessen does an excellent job sorting through an eventful half-month. If you've been looking for an easy way to keep up, just scan his piece for an update on a constantly-changing field.

Information Therapy Movement Taking Off

I'm in Park City, Utah participating in the 6th Annual Information Therapy Conference, hosted by the Josh Seidman and the Center for Information Therapy.  It's a great event so far and I'm looking forward to speaking about Health 2.0 trends and presenting OrganizedWisdom along with RevolutionHealth and DailyStrength on a panel hosted by Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya.

It's clear that the iX movement is evolving and is moving beyond the education phase to becoming a full-blown "movement".  Six years into the great work and education from the thought leaders attending over the years, there's no doubt the information providers, media companies, hospitals, physicians, nurses, marketers, etc. all get the value in prescribing information to patients as a solution to improving people's health, and solving some of today's biggest health challenges. 

It makes sense that just like prescribing medications to patients, one of the most essential solutions to improving patient care and people's health is to prescribe the right information, to the right patient, at the right time.

Making sure patients get quality information is perhaps the most essential solution the healthcare universe can implement when you consider that more people are now searching online for health information than seeing their doctor and that 80% of patient care today continues to be self-care.  That is, most people today continue to self-diagnose and self-treat (links to the powerpoints where I got these stats will soon be available on the iX Alliance Web site).

Attending this year are not only some of the country's largest hospitals and health providers, but also a new crop of Health 2.0 innovators as well as major media companies like the NYTimes which continues to make amazing innovations to The Gray Lady's health section under the leadership of Sarah Greene.

The energy is palpable and it is exciting to see such a great group of thinkers, entrepreneurs, leaders, health practitioners, and organizations working together to push this mission forward. There's no doubt that access to better information will help a lot of people.

Sites with spirit of Web 2.0 encouraging people to share thoughts on illnesses, doctors

The San Fransisco Chronicle has a nice round-up piece on some of the new Health 2.0 companies working to help patients.

We were happy to see OrganizedWisdom featured along with several other great companies.

Read the article, titled For these startups, patients are a virtue here.

Steven Krein Interview at Health 2.0

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.

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.

Who's joining Unity at Health 2.0? Only you can decide

OrganizedWisdom's own Unity Stoakes will be among the panelists on "Social Media for Patients" at the Health 2.0 User-Generated Healthcare conference next month in San Francisco. The organizers have one spot left on the panel, and they can't decide who it should be! So they're taking a poll. Choose your favorite from the candidates listed here.

Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival

Thank you to everyone who sent submissions for this edition, and especially to Bertalan Mesko for shepherding this project! Now on to new posts about the world of Medicine 2.0:

• thomas robey presents Who Is Sick? posted at Hope for Pandora, saying, "I think 'Who Is Sick' is a very interesting Web2.0 idea, and has the potential to be a useful tool for the public and health providers. (As I point out, it still needs some work though!)"
• Richard A. Schoor, also known as The Independent Urologist, offers a compelling post on why doctors should blog.
• Alvaro at SharpBrains offers 10 Questions to Find the Right Brain Fitness Program for You (which he conveniently makes available in printable one-sheet or bookmark form).
• Jamie Boyle of Duke Law School gave a fascinating TechTalk at Google on Science Commons and current innovations in tech IP law. Thanks to Deepak Singh at bbgm (business | bytes | genes | molecules) for pointing to this one.
• Would you allow your genetic material to be made public? Even if it revealed the details of your past sexual activity and drug use? Jason Bobe at The Personal Genome has an in-depth and excellent post exploring some of the personal privacy concerns around Web 2.0, titled Twittering Toilets and Phenomic Death Wishes.
• Manhattan Research has a new white paper, "Physicians and Web 2.0."
• R.W. Donnell of Notes from Dr. RW asks fellow physicians, "Are You UpToDate Dependent?" and discusses some of the dangers of over-reliance on "look up" tools as opposed to the physician's own knowledge and experience.
• Stephen Palter of Doc in the Machine is excited about the World's Highest Resolution HDTV Surgical Camera, which he used to help film an operation to be shown on National Geographic HD.
• The Clinical Cases blog looks at two algorithms for ranking medical blogs. I find it hard to believe that such blogs can or should be ranked electronically -- it takes a human to decide the questions of "is this worthwhile or trustworthy information?" and "does it satisfy the need I have right now?"
• Medical librarian/blogger David Rothman is encouraged by Nature Clinical Practice's new audio articles, which show promise for helping clinicians keep up to date on new research while driving or working out. He's also speaking out against the idea that patients who research their conditions online are necessarily "cyberchondriacs," and chiding Kosmix's RightHealth for building potentially useful technology with less-than-optimal results.
• Jean-Claude Bradley at Drexel University is blogging about his team's use of Second Life to teach chemistry mechanisms.
• Dr. Hsien-Hsien Li of Eye on DNA points to two interesting Web sites about personal genome technology.
• Walter at Highlight Health uses a Washington Post article as a jumping-off point for a discussion of physician profiling.
• On MedGadget, a first look at a new system making heart imaging available via iPhone.
• Pediatrician Uri Ginzburg at Medical 2.0 offers some potential medical uses for ning and other social networks.
• A University of Saskatchwan page offers a quick guide to medical blogs.
• MedSqod addresses the lawsuit-leery with useful guidelines for medical blogging and podcasting.
• Bertalan Mesko at Scienceroll (the founder of this carnival) has a great post on new tools for medical education, including "mind maps" for helping students remember their material for exams.

As you may have guessed from the length of this list, there is a LOT of great information out there, and the list of Medicine 2.0 bloggers is growing every day! It's an exciting time and I'm delighted to be part of it.

Submit your blog article to the next edition of medicine 2.0 using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Why Wisdom Matters

The New York Times, as part of its series profiling the top causes of death in the U.S., last weekend featured cancer. The article makes the point that cancer care is not standardized and that if one doctor says you have six months to live, the next may give you two years and you may surprise them all by lasting five years.

I particularly noticed this quote from Karen Pasqualetto, a cancer patient near Seattle:

“It’s patchwork, and frustrating that there’s not one person taking care of me who I can look to as my champion.... I don’t feel I have a doctor who is looking out for my care. My oncologist is terrific, but he’s an oncologist. The surgeon seems terrific, but I found him through my own diligence. I have no confidence in the system.”

Pasqualetto is a smart and savvy consumer, able to research her own case and seek out alternate treatment when her first oncologist seemed insufficiently willing to fight the disease. She had just given birth when the cancer was discovered, and has been using all the tools at her disposal to try to extend the time she has with daughter Isabel. She credits her new medical team with giving her precious months of  life that have let her watch Isabel take her first steps.

More than ever, it seems, patients are responsible for being their own best advocates, often at times when they're also sick or scared or in pain. Those of us who have Internet and critical thinking skills, who can sort through the mess of spam and misinformation online, have an advantage, and frequently find ourselves becoming resources in our own communities. (I'm sure I'm not the only one who's helped an older relative choose a Medicare prescription plan!)

That's why we're focusing on health "wisdom" -- the intelligence of ordinary people who deal with health care issues and systems every day. We can't change the system that leaves patients feeling like they don't have a "champion," as Pasqualetto puts it. What we can do is help them help themselves.

Medicine 2.0: Send your best posts here

OrganizedWisdom is hosting the Aug. 5 edition of the Medicine 2.0 blog carnival, and I'm looking for your best posts about the intersection of Web 2.0 tools and services with the world of health care. Bertalan Mesko is the founder of this carnival, and deserves mention for his work in gathering and exploring this emerging world.

What's a blog carnival, you ask? It's a single post which links to several other posts on different blogs, pulling them all together under a theme. For blog readers, carnivals are a good way to get connected with other blogs on topics that interest you. For bloggers, they're a good way to get exposure to new audiences, and build connections with others in your field.

It's not just blog posts, either -- if you've seen a great YouTube video, an interesting podcast or slideshow, or some other piece of Web content that illuminates an aspect of "Medicine 2.0", I'm interested in including it! E-mail me at pat@organizedwisdom.com or use the submission form on the Medicine 2.0 site to let me know what should be included.

Health 2.0 Conference update

Matthew at The Health Care Blog has a quick update on the Health 2.0 conference in September.

There are already well over 100 attendees including lots of people from across the worlds of technology, providers, plans, pharma and finance. If you're planning on attending and haven't signed up yet, you may want to act quickly to reserve your spot.

OrganizedWisdom's own Unity Stoakes will be there, appearing on a panel on "Social Media for Patients."

Where Have You Gone, Doctor Blogger?

Fard Johnmar of HealthCare Vox recently gathered up a bunch of different posts about a decline in doctor-bloggers, some of whom have quit or cut back on their blogging because of real or perceived threats to their jobs. (Or, in the case of flea, because his now-defunct blog became an issue in a malpractice case.)

Blogs by medical professionals pose a special concern for them, their employers and their patients. Yet they're also a valuable source of insight into the professional lives of the people we turn to when we need health care.

I like the rules Fat Doctor (who almost quit blogging when a colleague identified her and showed printouts of her blog posts to her boss) sets for herself and lists at the top of her page. Among them:

As a medical blogger and a patient myself, I take HIPAA very, very seriously.  If one of my patients were to stumble upon this blog and recognize himself, I would want to curl up and die.  More than that, I would be hung out to dry by the attorneys who make HIPAA violations their livelihood.  Mostly, though, it would be wrong.  It is wrong to blog about a patient or his/her family.  Period.

Therefore, any patient story on this blog is a work of fiction inspired by multiple patient encounters.  Any resemblance to any person or family member, living or dead, is purely coincidental. ...

Never write anything about anyone that you wouldn’t say to his/her face.  If it would hurt your relationship in any way, don’t do it.

Sit on patient stories and any questionable posts as drafts for 24h before publishing them.

Don’t become so involved in the blog that I ignore the beauty of my non-cyber world, including my non-cyber friends and non-cyber family.

While health professionals may face new restrictions (some self-imposed) in their blogging, patients are increasingly discovering the value of blogging as a way to chronicle the progress of a condition or treatment, share their experiences with others who may be facing similar conditions, and spread information about little-known conditions. To pick just one example, check out Sick Girl Speaks, a blog by a woman with cystic fibrosis who's had two double-lung transplants, looks at the wider issues around patient experiences with serious illness:

I have seen in myself and others who live with serious illness the tendency to compare and judge the severity of another’s maladies. Strangely, it can be almost a sense of superiority that underlies the need to pronounce “My boo boo is bigger than your boo boo” and therefore write someone off as a “baby” or insensitive to the people with real problems. 

Conversely, I have seen many people be afraid to share their difficulties with someone like me because “they have no right to complain when they see what other people are dealing with”. The question I pose: Isn’t there enough compassion to go around?

Do you know of a great blog by a health professional, or by a patient? Add a comment and let us know!

Why Web 2.0 Matters to Health Companies

John Sharp of eHealth has posted the PowerPoint slides to a presentation he recently gave on Web 2.0 in health care. It's a useful roundup of current trends for those who are new to all this -- if there are people in your organization who needs to be convinced that social networking is important to health care, show them this.

I particularly liked his comparison of the values of the health care industry to the values of Web 2.0. He also encouraged health organizations not to prohibit participation by their employees -- the kind of ban that has produced many "stealth" blogs by doctors, nurses and others who hide their identities for fear of retaliation. Instead, he recommends following IBM's sensible policies.

Health Bloggers as Wisdom Creators

If you've looked at medical blogs at all, you've probably run across Kevin, M.D., written by a primary-care physician, Kevin Pho, who works in Nashua, N.H. He's a perceptive and often funny writer who takes on issues ranging from the Avandia scare to why some people get cravings to eat ice.

Cary Byrd at eDrugSearch has a nice mini-interview with Kevin focusing on the nature of health blogging. "I try to give my posts an air of controversy to spark debate," says Pho. "By doing so, it will bring attention to important healthcare issues that mainstream media may ignore or minimize."

A good health blog, whether it's by a patient advocate or a medical professional, also transmits real information of the sort that doesn't make the health headlines on TV or in your local paper. (Like the ice thing -- apparently it means the person is lacking iron. Who knew?) Kevin Pho is lucky in that his employer has no problem with him using his real name and photo on his blog. Many other health bloggers cloak their identities, either to protect patient confidentiality or their own jobs.

Waffling on what health studies mean

"Dads to blame for fat kids," shouts a headline from this week's news. "Hmmm, there might be something to that," I think, remembering the waffles-and-sausage breakfast my dad made for me last weekend. Still, I'm suspicious of anything that sounds that easy. And why blame dads?

Turned out the story could have just as easily been headlined "Thin and healthy? Thank Dad." The study found that dads who were engaged with their kids, setting boundaries and acting as role models, were more likely to have children with a healthy Body Mass Index (BMI) than dads who were disengaged or permissive. The parenting style of mothers -- who often get blamed when a child is heavier than normal -- didn't show any correlation to kids' BMI.

Setting aside legitimate questions about the use of BMI to measure obesity, does this prove dads are to blame when their kids are overweight? Of course not. Heredity, culture, available food and exercise options, and the influence of friends, care providers and other relatives all play a role in a child's weight.

News stories and headlines often oversimplify or magnify the results of research. The Effect Measure public-health blog last week gathered up a range of headlines that appeared in response to a release from the Centers for Disease Control on the use of masks to prevent the spread of avian flu -- a Rorschach test for headline writers, as they put it.

As an old newspaper headline-writer myself, I can sympathize with the journalist struggling to sum up complicated information in six words or less while keeping it engaging and fun. Yet the results leave many people struggling to make sense of conflicting information while making good decisions for themselves and their families. OrganizedWisdom continues to look for more and better ways to make sense of health information in a way that ordinary people can understand, trust and share.

Still, ladies, if your kids are chubby, it may not be all your fault. Just to be sure, though, you probably ought to save that Mother's Day chocolate for yourself...

Health care is confusing. Wisdom can help.

Sometimes, life is just unfair. My friend J is 32, works out at a gym three days a week, eats a heart-healthy diet, is los