Health 2.0 incubator session
Even though I was attending the Health2.0 conference for the last 12 hours and it is quite late in the evening, but I can’t help but write all about a great experience. I congratulate Indu Subaiya and Matthew Holt to put together this (sold-out) conference.
A room full of innovation and disruptive ideas was very intellectually stimulating.
It started with the big players in the search space like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and WebMD who lightly touched their plans of expanding in the customized search for consumers.
Followed was a panel of new(er) players in Healthcare with impressive presentations from Healia, Kosmix and Healthline. The interesting use of ‘natural language’ search and utilizing trusted sources for health information was fascinating. But I found it very hard to imagine the adoption of these powerful tools by our ‘average patient’- our consumer. What was missing was easy to understand customized abstracts relevant to the consumers.
Social media panel was highlighted by Sophia’s Garden and PatientsLikeMe, that were born out of personal suffering. Popular patient community Daily Strength is remarkable in having a great user experience. MedHelp as a veteran player has an accomplished group Physician community, from leading institutions, backing its reputation and building relationship with the consumers.
The panel on tools for consumers health got well moderated by Scott and had a great presentation about Quicken Health a very adoptable solution from already successful Intuit.
For me as a physician, the highlight of the evening was Provider networking panel especially Sermo and Within 3. These virtual physician lounges provide an unprecedented opportunities to the providers to improve the standards of care delivery and clinical research.
Looking ahead I see the need to collect all this fragmented information spaces into a healthcare bazaar with a trusted personal shopper to advise you.
Archana Dubey, MD
HealDeal Consumer Portal
Gyan Patra said,
September 26, 2007 @ 8:30 am
Dr Dubey:
I have been following the development and watching the blogs as well as the technological development for quite some time. There are several statistics, medi a reports, research papers sponsored by several industry stalwarts like Intel, IBM, Micrososft, Dell, HP including local and federal govt agencies. In a gist, all the things going on is all about:
1. Minimize operational cost of the provider like Physicians or Hospitals.
2. Patient safety including treatment and prscription.
3. Speed of access of Information by providers.
All of those tends towrds EHR/EMR programs. Though consumer doesn’t care how his physician manages his practice or how well a hospital is managed. He cares about the service/treatment plus the cost to him. Thats an interesting topic and market research says that there are big money wasted in that segment because of lack of standarization, interconnectivity etc etc. Clearly there is no single leader who has a sizable penetration. WebMD does a good job, but the satisfaction rating says why they can not grow exponentially. Plus they do lack a lot.
Anyway, EMR/EHR adoption rate is so slow, that makes us to feel where we are heading towards the connectivity.
Coming back to your point, consumer rights. I guess, this country has best of everything except the real consumer right to know about his expenses and compare that expenses against similar services by other providers. Hospitals never publish there rates for any service. Drug retailers never publish their charges. Similarly labs etc also don’t publish their rates. That means how a consumer having high deductible insurance or no insurance can compare where to go for his health care matters. Except healthcare, all the rest of the segments provide a price list. And thanks to the World wide Web, several price comparison sites provide that information so that consumer can decide depending on his need.
Though I have several comments and suggestions that I can make to make it more competitive. But I would prefer that to discuss in person rather than publicly.
AthenaHealth went public and Wall Street analysts say that its a Heavenly IPO. I think this will probably give a hard time to WebMD and Mckesson as well as some of GE health care services segment. Similarly RevolutionHealth. Though when i heard about Steve case statement in early 2006 in JP Morgan Health care conference, it sounded like a great thing in making. They have several great things like blogs/reviews etc. I think thats a small part of the consumer centric healthcare. My definition of consumer centric health care is where consumer drives everything. He should have a choice basing on his budget.
In a gist:
1. In order to make it cheap, it need to market driven than certain lobby makers driven like - Pharma chains, Insurance chains.
2. More involvement of consumers in the decision making process.
3. “Privacy” has become a scary thing for consumer. Need to educate them that, if they can do financial transaction online or over the phone why not helathcare things.
4. Create competation among providers - Be it Physicain, Labs, Hospitals. I think this is the biggest thing which can reduce the helathcare costs.
I see this as a retail revolution or automobile revolution. I think, it will happen one day by the consumers.
Govt is playing a key role by setting deadlines/acts etc which is a pointer to teh industry to drive. I guess it s like any other sector be it energy or finance or manufacturing.
Thanks,
Gyan Patra
Founder of AccentDr.
Gyan Patra said,
September 27, 2007 @ 4:09 am
Dr Dubey:
Can I have your contact email address? I like the ideas that you are sharing. I am hoping if we can team up. Sorry for making this forum to contact.
Thanks,
Gyan Patra
William Hill said,
January 11, 2008 @ 2:09 pm
Health 2.0 is derived from the term Web 2.0, which implies a 2nd generation/release of the Internet.
The ‘2.0′ part was established within computer programming - as a new edition of a an application is released, it is common practice for the programmers to add an incrementing number at the end of a program’s name, to label the new version.
Web 2.0 implies the ‘2nd release’ of the Internet, which of course is not based on anything concrete. The Internet being made up of millions upon millions of interconnecting computers running lots of various programs, but is more of a concept to describe the type of programs/applications/functionality one can now locate on the Internet.
The Internet was initially complied of mainly static pages of data. Soon to follow was email, web forums and chat rooms where discussions could take place. Web 2.0 refers to a trend on the Internet that saw a step forward in the way users conduct communicate over the Internet, which includes the use of blogs, videos, podcasts, wikis and online communities where people with common interests get together to share ideas, media, code and all types of information.
Web 2.0 technologies such as social networking, blogs, patient communities and online tools for search and self-care management look as though they will permanently alter the healthcare landscape indefinitely.
As with Web 2.0, there is a lot of debate about the meaning of the term ‘health 2.0′. The Wall Street Journal recently attempted to define Health 2.0 as:
“The social-networking revolution is coming to health care, at the same time that new Internet technologies and software programs are making it easier than ever for consumers to find timely, personalized health information online. Patients who once connected mainly through email discussion groups and chat rooms are building more sophisticated virtual communities that enable them to share information about treatment and coping and build a personal network of friends. At the same time, traditional Web sites that once offered cumbersome pages of static data are developing blogs, podcasts, and customized search engines to deliver the most relevant and timely information on health topics.”
While this traditional view of the definition imputes it as the merging of the Web 2.0 phenomenon within healthcare. I personally believe it’s so much more. In my opinion, Health 2.0 goes way beyond just the permeant social networking technology to include a complete renaissance in the way that Healthcare is actually delivered and conveyed.
Source - http://rxpop.com/