Health 2.0 around the web

While we were off having fun over the break, quite a lot got written about Health 2.0, so here's a quick round-up. We start with Forbes which declares that this is the year of small deals (<$50m) in the Web 2.0 market. I'm sure we'll see plenty of those continue. However, some Health 2.0 players will be pretty disappointed if they only sell for $50m--especially if they've had more than that invested already!

Shawn Walen writes a health IT blog for PR company Schwartz which just coincidentally has a big franchise in health IT. Shawns's blog is pretty straight. He tells the AMA what he thinks of their antics (he thinks it's good news for Bimmer dealers), and he's not much kinder about those hyping Health 2.0. Surely he doesn't mean us?

IBM's Jack Mason is much kinder, telling everyone to visit this blog and look at Health 2.0. We hope all 150,000 of his colleagues drop by!

ZDnet's Dana Blakenhorn thinks that this is the the year of web health marketing and he likes Revolution, Healthline and Healthcare.com. He also picks up on something we've been seeing which is the interaction of Health 2.0 and the major DM companies like Healthways, Matria, Staywell et al. Disease Management 2.0? Hmmm, should we trademark that one too?

Of course, it's not all happening in the US. In fact lots is happening overseas. In the UK The Times (yup owned by some Aussie, who also owns MySpace you may recall) is launching a health and fitness Web 2.0 community. Meanwhile if you want an object lesson in how to get lots of press with few resources, not to mention see an interesting way of combining chat messaging with search in a community, look over the pond to Israel. iMedix has yet another write up (and it's a good one).

Talking of write-ups, Alt. Search Engines reviews a number of search engines but also includes as search  a number of Health 2.0 sites that aren't actually search engines the way the terms is understood, but are directories (ZocDoc), management tools (Enurgi), or community sites (Taumed). but well worth a quick look. Someone should let them know, though, that Medstory was bought by Microsoft nearly a year ago.

But don't worry if you're scoffing about all this Health 2.0 nonsense. Davidrothman still hates the term 2.0, and thinks that Health 2.0 is just about consumer health care and investment hype. On the other hand perhaps he's just scared that librarians will become redundant?

Comments

[Vince Kuraitis]

Shawn Walen writes: "There is still a much hype on the topic (Health 2.0). As usual the payors and employer groups will be the driving force."

I dont' see his statement as an accurate description of reality. Yes, I'd agree that employers are pretty much univerally supportive Health 2.0 principles.

But, I believe Health 2.0 is PERCEIVED as potentially disruptive to health plans in their current status of "King-of-the-Hill in health data that we have about you", i.e., claims and pharmacy data about patients. While claims and pharmacy data about patients is a crude proxy for clinical and patient perceptions, it's a bettter data set than anybody else has today.

In reality, I think that in REALITY there is a strong quality/cost value proposition for health plans, but my sense is that they don't see it yet. I'd be curious how others see this.