Intelligent search engine

Everyone are looking for the killer application that will enable intelligent search platform for health information.

Its mostly needed for consumers who find themselves eager for such information.

The information is already there on the web but its so cahotic and time consuming so we need the right tools to bring us high quality health information.

there's already various SU which are trying to resolve this problem.Its going to be one of the hot subjects in the health 2.0 world.
There will not be only one winner. Probably there will be few ones. The winners will bring huge value to patients/consumers .
To this neighborhood we are expecting to have a new member called Infomedmd.com.
The basic concept of this platform will be a questionnaire form that will enable to understand the right information needs of the consumers.
In their site meanwhile there is only a promo " going to be here soon" - In July. So we are waiting for you, guys.
The people beyond this venture have a mix and rich knowledge concerning :
Medical practice, innovation, web world and applications.

Good Luck

Give your patients advice - "How to find high qualified medical content"

How to find the exact medical information is a challenge both to professionals and patients/consumers.

The developement of health 2.0 sites may help some for organization the medical content on the web but it will not solve the problem :
Existence of unproven and uncorrect content.

If we are looking from the patients eyes its important also for us , the physicians, that the consumers will look for "good" materials on the web. It can solves problems of communication with the people on the other side of the table ( lets remember that everyone is on the same side anyhow).
Communication between the doctor and the patient is one of the key factor for treatment success.
I found lately this new article posted on CNN/Health .
Its trying to summarize some good advices for those patients who looks for medical content on the web (It seems that everyone are doing this).

This article is important for the professionals as one of their roles is to guide their patient in every aspect concerning medicine /helth/ preventive medicine

Ifound this article summarize this issue in simplicity and brightness way.
It gives some affiliation sites as well.

Gopubmed- Interview with the C.E.O

Attached an interesting interview with Dr. Michael Alvers , the C.E.O of Gopubmed , one of the promising new semantic health search engine.
The interview was posted in "Altsearchengines" blog.

Semantic search engine must be the next step/generation in the health sector.
Gopubmed based in Dresden, Germany, is mostly focus in the research field It is going to be interesting how it will progress alongside and with the health 2.0 trend.

Some quotes from the interview:

"Our mission is to create the next generation search engine for the life sciences, which makes search much better than it was/is today. We are working to realize our vision “towards answering questions,” meaning to ease the process of getting answers"

"Today our target users are researchers in the life sciences and medical doctors interested in scientific research. These are also the users of GoPubMed today. Here is a partial list of corporations using GoPubMed: Unilever, Glaxo Smith Cline, Sanofi-Aventis, Wyeth, L’Oreal – literally the Who’s Who of Pharma and drug development, and also big research institutions like Stanford University, MIT, LMU in Munich and Harvard"

Scirus topic pages - Scientist sharing their knowledge

Its more a science 2.0 platform than medical 2.0 platform but it has the potential to aggregate a strong professional content.
It is in the Beta phase and its still lack enough content but this is the "magic problem" of many others medical/health 2.0 platforms who are strongly depends on the users traffic and involvement.
Scirus topic pages :
Its contain two majors section :
1. Niche search engine ( There is already strong competition in this field)
2.Platform for collaboration and sharing for scientis. Its based on the concept of open access combined with a Wikis like platform.

Disadvantages :
Without focusing ( search engine , community/sharing platform)
Dont add something unique . Its looks like you see it or hear about it before.
Advantage:
Not so crowded yet (for scientists)

Medical search engine- a competitive niche

I wrote in the past about several medical search engines.
This niche is "hot" these days.
Everyone understand the power beyond ultimat medical search engine.
Microsoft purchased Medstory . Google is deep inside the health 2.0 race also ( see my last post as an evidence and example for this).
Curbside.MD is another example and I must say a good one.

1. You can naturally phrase medical and clinical questions in the search bar. Its like asking your tutor or your coleague professional question.

2. There are well defined sections . Including "Quick Consult" section for getting high level review results and "The Best Evidence " to get in- depth results and answers for your questions.

3. There is an algorithm to get the "best hits" results and also results under the topics "clinical trials" and "visual diagnosis".

I will add this platform to ours Medical 2.0 directory.
But he will have strong competition from the others including the "big lions"
Its going to be so interesting in the "medical search engine" this year and in the following year as well.

Ours web professional identity

Tooday I observed about two items which related to the issue of "web identity"
For long time I'm intersted in this psychological and social phenomenon.
Yes, it's not new , but its becoming more and more powerfull.
For us as physicians, its even more important because we are observed more and more by our patients through the web.
So , here's a link for a nice and clever article on this subject which also deals with a new concept of "web reputation manager". (Someone who will keep and manage ours web identity).
Think about the negative influence in our sector:
Is it will be more important to make all your efforts for being more professional or to make and establish your own web identity?).
Think about the positive influence:
The "viral marketing" phenomenon by the web can help break through traditional barriers : everyone has the potential to add his own professional ideas/opinions and participate in central and influence discussions in his speciality even if he is still a young junior or even a med student. Whats count his your quality of idea, not yours tradition place in the "guilde"

Another example of the buzz around this subject is the releasing of a new platform , called Spock.
It's all about "people search engine".
It's only in his early phase so dont expect he will fullfill all your wishes concerning such a web platform, but still it is one of the firsts in a promising new land on the web "exploring about people".
As we are looking for colleagues through the web and others (including our patients) are searching about us it is related to the health/ medicine 2.0 world.

google vs. pubmed

I
See "google vs. pubmed"
Found this article through post of new and interesting blog about medicine and technology called Ronald Healy MD .
It's short post that was published in the open medicine blog - OM blog.
Deals about and compare between search abilities with google and pubmed.
Seems to be interesting for eneryone in our community.
Concerning the new blog - wish him all the best and happy to welcome new friend to our family.

Medworm- another R.S.S medical engine

I wrote to you last week about medical R.S.S aggregator.
Today, for accomplish the subject I must mention Medworm.
Medworm is an excellent medical R.S.S engine.
It's claim to cover more than 4,000 medical sources. Including journals, blogs, organizations etc.
I don't have to rewrite the benefits of such web 2.0 tool for us.
Some of you already knows about it. For others is my gift for this weekend.

sputtr - the serch engine directory

Hi

Such a simple tool but so needed and nice one.
http://www.sputtr.com
Sputtr gives you the opportunity to search items from seperate, well-known and popular serch engine and sites.Yes , the deafult is google and also some of is various options like google news or blogs, but what about looking and serch in other places like wikipedia , del.icio.us etc.
You have the option for recommend on other sites that you are using them in your web-searching.
The importance is getting specific and focused results from every site or engine you choose.
This is another web 2.0 tool that can serve us as well in the medical/health sector.

MEDICAL SEARCH ENGINE

I'm not your judge ,i'm just try to open your minds and expand your horizon a bit more than googles frontiers.
Try http://www.healia.com/healia - the medical search engine.

Its both to consumers and professionals.You have subsections for searching, so if you are a Med Pro you can get results that fit for your demands.

Worth to compare it with Google.