In an article entitled Health 2.0 published in the latest Technology Quarterly, the Economist asks: “Technology and society: Is the outbreak of cancer videos, bulimia blogs and other forms of “user generated” medical information a healthy trend?”
This article combined with the recent Health 2.0 conference have created an explosion of activity, commentary, analysis and hype around the topic of Health 2.0 that has both legitimized the concept and introduced it into the main stream media as well.
Ok, but what exactly is Health 2.0?
Essentially the Economist article addresses Health 2.0 concepts and technologies from the patient’s perspective only. Health 2.0 is loosely defined throughout as Web 2.0 technologies as they are applied to and by consumers of healthcare. What is missing is the extension of the concept of Health 2.0 as the technological foundation of the next generation of healthcare delivery. This however is not a short coming of the article as the much more renowned and hyped Web 2.0 is also struggling to move beyond wide spread consumer adoption and into the world of the enterprise.
Perhaps we should consider this stage more an early chapter in the overall discussion rather than an explicit attempt to define an entirely new heath care technology model and in this light, the article does the overall concept of Health 2.0 a great service.
The 2.0 moniker is synonymous with participation
As with Web 2.0, the root of Health 2.0 is of course “user” or in this case “patient” participation. Patients are inherently becoming more and more interested in participating directly in their own care in a manner and magnitude that may be foreign to the traditional Healthcare industry. Acceptance and adoption will however become obligatory as the web and other related technologies is currently exponentially accelerating the proliferation of participatory medicine and healthcare via healthcare related websites, applications and blogs.
The web revolution has come to many other industries and it was only a matter of time before it found its way into healthcare. A similar shift has taken place in personal finance, real estate and the travel industry where for some time consumers have taken more and more personal responsibility for setting and researching their own requirements and then acting as a direct participant in fulfilling those requirements.
One can only hope that this initial foray into participatory medicine will not spawn similar “do it yourself” tendencies pertaining to healthcare throughout the general public; however there are already observable benefits to both patients and care givers which the article points out:
Patients who live with chronic diseases such as epilepsy often know more about them than their doctors, contends Daniel Hoch, a professor at Harvard Medical School who helped to found BrainTalk. Many doctors, he says, “don’t get the wisdom of crowds.” But he thinks the combined knowledge of a crowd of his patients would be far greater than his own. A wiki capturing the knowledge of, say, 300 epileptics could be invaluable not only to others with epilepsy, but also to the medical professionals who care for them. Their aggregated understanding, he says, “would be helpful to all health care.”
In conclusion, the Economist article is a great introduction to the concepts inherent in the Health 2.0 movement and by its endorsement the magazine has added significant clout to the conversation.
Theoretically related links:
Health 2.0: From The Economist print edition
Organized Wisdom Featured in The Economist: Health 2.0 Picks Up Steam
Health 2.0 in The Economist
The Economist: Is Health 2.0 Good Medicine?
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