Ask experts on-line

Its not a new idea but it seems that it will be a central part of what we are calling "Health 2.0".

justanswer.com/ Health gives you the opportunity to ask doctors and medical professionals on-line.

Its not an on-line communication with your own physician but it gives you the chance to seek for secondary advice.
The advices there are given by "payment for advice" but maybe this equatin lead to more responsibility ( more than the ordinary medical forums).

Answers for medical problems are sometimes complex and you need to transfer a lot of information for the professional for getting a right answer but with the current technology it looks like it can be solved very easily and in friendly usability platforms.

Microsoft and Google involvement on health 2.0 - Privacy concerns

Yesterday NY Times published a review about an article which was written recently on New England Journal of Medicine

The issue : Privacy concerns regarding MS and google's PHR web based projects .

Some of the concerns are well known and based by strong evidence and theories (ofcourse you can read them on the attached link to the article or in the original review on New England) but still everyone should remember several points as well :

1. Its time that the health sector and consumers will earn and get benefits from the highly speed emerging technology on the web.

2. Privacy is a major an important issue but we should not prevent progressing by adopting technology on behalf of being "privacy guards".

3. Strong power and influence by several major companies on tremendous highly valuble health data is maybe not the optimal situation but the involvement of this two giants in the health sector is going to bring prosperity to the health 2.0 world and eventually to the "general" and traditional health sector. More powefull health sector means better services for the public .

I will be more than pleased to hear and listen to my collegues thoughts and ideas regarding this issue

Microsoft vision on health

Maybe some of you will have the chace to participate in the free event that is going to take place between Aprill 22 and April 24 in Atlantic City New Jersey:

Microsoft Health & Life Sciences Developer and Solutions Conference 2008

Watch the attached link to understand more deeply about the contents and participants among Microsoft executives.

The mission statement by their own words:
"It is a unique event designed for developers, architects, technical and business decision makers in the healthcare industry. Please join us to discover how Microsoft, its partners, and customers make possible the delivery of Software + Services in Health & Life Sciences".

This year it looks more important than ever because of the emerging influence of the health 2.0 on Microsot strategic and tactics in the health and life science sector.

Opensource tools in The health 2.0 arena

Im sharing with you a fine post who summerize by the writer words :

" 100 opensource tools to the medical professionals"
Some of the tools are general ones but can contribute as well to professional in the health sector . There are also several tools in the list that are targeting to the benefits of the patients.
The subcategories are mentioned there :

1. Medical Billing and Electronic Medical Records
2. Antivirus, Security and Privacy ( protection of patients and research data)
3.Communications
4.Graphics and Imaging (for brain imaging, 3d imaging etc.)
5.Content Management Tools
6.Research and Reference (assisting in research work and study)
7.Multimedia ( for audio , visual and mobile files)
8.Storing Patient Information
9.General Tools that Work for Everyone
10.Collaboration Tools (with other medical professionals)
11.Storing, Sharing and Managing Files
12.For Patients (introduce these tools with your patients).

Worth looking into it and find some helping tools.
Thanks Sally for sharing with me this post.

Virtual E- visit

Hello

Today I found an excellent post about an interesting topic :

Virtual e-visit : " A truth or a myth" .

Here you can find the link to the post from "The life ledger" blog .

Its about the rising scene on the net of patients meet their physicians by virtual meetings.
There you can find already known reference such as :

"Jay Parkinson clinic"
"San Francisco on call medical group"

But, more than that is the fact that insurance companies are taking very seriously this scene .

What is missing in this post is reference to new ventures appearing these days such as the new platform for e-visits : Americanwell.com
and analysis/discussion about the upcoming influence of the "giants platforms" : Google weaver and Microsoft Healthvault on this subject.

Revenge of the experts - Is it crucial to the Health 2.0?

One of the hypes concerning the web 2.0 is the "Wisdom of the crowds" concept.

This concept led to developement of many SU including in the Health 2.0/Medical 2.0 sector.
Many new communitiesand social networks are based on this concept.
In the health sector we reviewed in the past several consumers based communities and it seems that there are more and more of them .
I want to share with you a review I read on newsweek which published several days ago - The revenge of the experts .
The main theme is the importance of the experts knowledge to influence and to balance unauthorized and unreliable content.
In the article you can find some example for new "certified content sites "
like :
Bigthink.com
or:
Googles version for wikipedia -Knol (here you can find a sample of knol for the term "Insomnia").

I must agree with the thesis and even say that its more crucial in the health sector.
We must be aware of the cons and the dangers of consumers becoming "addicted" to others unprofessional advices without any reliable source who can edit or controll some way the content flow.
No, Im not arguing that social networks are a major forward step in the nature of the web but probably the next step will be finding the gold pathway that will combine the power of the "wisdom of the crowds" with the basic power of the "knowledge of the experts".
In the health/medical sector is essential.

Social networking for physicians - Updated on Medical 20.com

Yesterday we updated our Medical 20.com site with several more social networking and communities for physicians.
So we have almost dozen of these kind of sites so far.

1. Do we need so many sites for narrow niche ( lets remember that the main crowd didnt join yet to the web 2.0/ Health 2.0 hype) ? .
2.What is their business model or what is the added value these sites are giving to the professionals outside of the commodities - platform and application for community ?

For me thereare intuitive answers :

1. Its too crowded for another "simple" social networking.
2. The "basic platform" for community should be an extra layer to an innovative idea that will gather the professional together.
Im waiting for the "killer platform" that will cause physicians and scientist to see and value the benefits of being there- on the net .

What is your observation regarding this issue?