Health 2.0 – Patient-oriented Health Care, by Dan Kogan

Dan Kogan is a veteran IT developer who built some matching systems now prevalent in financial institutions. He’s now turned his attention to healthcare and has started Health World Web. I (Matthew that is) have been advising him as he gets going, and have therefore (as I allways want good material) bullied him into writing about his view of why health care is ripe for this technology and a little about what his company plans to do. (Don’t forget that the same offer is open to anyone who wants to write on the Health 2.0 Blog)

When exactly did the power of healthcare move out of the hands of the people and into the hands of the doctors? Historically, patients do not take the upper hand when it comes to choosing the proper healthcare. Choosing the right doctor becomes a nerve wrecking game of cross referencing the insurance listings with yellow pages, the general listings of a Google search inquiry with proprietary knowledge or word of mouth. Finding a good doctor often reminds a patient of a game of dice. The chances of rolling two 6's are equal to 1/36 or about 3%. What comes into the equation is the patient’s insurance, the insurance a doctor will accept, the potential path to the specialist through the gatekeeper (if one is required), locale and then, just pure randomness in getting to one of the more than 700K licensed MDs.

With the rise of the Internet, at least the last part can be solved, or helped by the army of newly created sites whose only purpose and claim to fame is to put patients’ minds at ease, help them make the right choice, and have at least the minimum of assurance when it comes to the choice of a doctor, treatment or medical advice.

A very powerful “human” engine that is making waves at the beginning of the 21st century is called the Social Network. It has started with the arrival of LinkedIn, MySpace, Friendster and Facebook. Simple social communication made a leap into the multiple vertical domains of human knowledge. The trend of health related vertical social networks picked up over the last year.

The premise behind this so called Health 2.0 movement is simple. Patients are merely tired of not knowing the whos, whys, hows and what fors associated with the care they are receiving from their doctors. Patients have accepted diagnosis and treatment at face value for too long. The office process for healthcare has remained the same since the inception of organized healthcare. But what exactly does Health 2.0 offer to a patient? And what part do doctors play in this movement?

With the insurgence of Medical Social Networking sites with a patient / doctor interactive communities, patients are now able to provide and share knowledge about diseases, treatments, and local doctors within their own communities. These sites are the heart of the Health 2.0 idea. Moving out of the depths of the waiting rooms and into the space of the World Wide Web, patients are discussing the most intimate of details surrounding their diagnoses, treatments, disease progression, remission or cure and overall patient care. Doctors are critiqued down to the most fine of details. Power. That is what the patients are taking back and sharing with fellow and prospective patients. This power, once only reserved for doctors in charge of a patient's care, is being taken back by those who can benefit the most, the patients.

Communities built upon real life experiences and a rating system of medical care is what is bound to give patients a choice, the choice that has been missing from the healthcare field for so long. Why are these communities going to last? Because patients, once they know they can achieve a higher level of care by choosing doctors that have been rated and judged by other patients, will never again settle for a third or fourth hand unreliable referral. Patients have long deserved the right to know everything there is to know about their care and their doctors. The Internet communities surrounding the revolutionary Health 2.0 idea offer that knowledge. A freedom, if you will, is being instilled upon people. The freedom to ask the questions they were once afraid to ask and to get a real answer from both sides, doctors and other patients.

On the flip side of the communities, doctors will now have to live up to the oath they have based their lives and careers upon. Armed with the knowledge of what patients will undoubtedly share (including their personal experiences and inner most thoughts) with other patients, doctors will have to provide the highest level of care. Somehow the doctor had reached a level of untouchable nature. This nature is the entire reason why the Health Care 2.0 system will not only be a source of knowledge but of wielding power for the patient. Patients now, armed with a vaster knowledgebase, will enter into the doctor / patient relationship knowingly expecting a certain level of care. No more blind appointments, no more recommendations being handed out as a favor to other physician, patients are taking their health care into their own hands, because it is what they deserve. Service that is the best for every patient in every situation is the ultimate outcome of patient driven knowledgebase.

The flexibility of the Health 2.0 idea rests with the source of information upon which it is built. The patients rate doctors, share doctor experience, and search for doctors based on the ratings of other patients, the doctor's specialty, knowledge, training and even their background. This is the area where companies like Health World Web can make a difference. What is the ultimate user experience? How can the site distill the information in the most creative way? Can the user’s profile stir the search in the right direction?

At Health World Web, we are taking these questions seriously. The Recommendation Engine we are working on would take into account many aspects of the user’s activity and presence on the site, to recommend the most relevant results in Buddies, Communities or Doctors searches. We spend each day thinking about what information is the most relevant and how can we present that information to users in the most unobtrusive way. The best reward for us is when emails and testimonials arrive from our users, filled with words of appreciation.

Today is a bright day for the health care system. Patients are sharing real life experiences with other patients. Doctors are taking patients’ feelings and level of care into careful consideration. We are building a world based upon the idea that knowledge and the sharing of such knowledge will transform a once secretive part of life into a public sharing portal. Health 2.0 will change the way patients and doctors look at health care. 

Dan Kogan

Comments

[doc99]

Health 2.0 seems another way of defining an instance in which the inmates run the asylums. With power comes responsibility. Let me know when "Health 2.0" confers upon physicians the ability to sue the patients for their own malpractice.

[Daniel Kogan]

You are absolutely right. The wrong information, when presented to patients, can lead to incorrect decisions and activities and thus appear to have the "inmates run the asylum" effect. That is why the interaction between patients and doctors via a Health 2.0 platform is the ultimate goal of the communities.

Dan

[Sonal]

Dan,

This is a great idea. This seems to be a way to further push patient-centered care and create a community for both physicians and patients. Physicians and Administrators need continuous feedback on "patient" service. I am a huge advocate for adequate patient education on their diagnoses, and I think that physicians, nurses, and administrative staff at medical offices and hospitals need feedback on how well they are communicating and interacting to/with their patients. The system you propose would provide a forum for patients to explain how well they were helped by their providers of care (education and treatment wise).

Sonal

[Samuel]

The importance of quality health information can not be stressed enough. When patients interact with other patients, and doctors provide quality health information without the cost of a office visit, health care begins the evolution process from treatment to preventative care.

We need to support and contribute to these communities and gather together as a group of patients who not only want and need quality information, but deserve that information, as well.

[David Forgione]

Ran into this blog I think this guy might have a point http://healthcareinsurancetoday.blogspot.com/

[Gale Wilson-Steele]

CareSeek recently asked a couple of clever film students from UCLA to create a "commercial" that could be promoted on our site and the ubiquitous free world of YouTube. Think, we asked them, of situations that patients might find themselves in that would require a competent doctor. And then, show us why a patient might wish he had used a recommendation for CareSeek's provider rating and review service first.

In this one minute video, we see the fears of the Young and Healthy...a broken arm. These kids don't see themselves with chronic conditions or rare diseases; they see themselves getting hurt on the playing field. In fact, when surveyed to find out where or how the young adult chooses a doctor, the most popular answer was, "the Emergency Room, I guess."

So what does this mean for Health 2.0? This indicates that the generation that was weaned on the Web... the ones that expertly can navigate FaceBook, MySpace, Google and Wikipedia...are not the ones who immediately require volumes of health information, complex health insurance (catastrophic will do), PHR's, drug diaries, screenings and reminders. These trained and competent candidates for online healthcare are not the at-risk generation (except, of course, when they are engaged in extreme sports).

Most amusing of all, is how this generation views medical incompetence...it's a peer, fresh out of med. school, inexperienced and hyperventilating over what certainly is not a Standard Procedure:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=careseek&search_type=