Health 2.0

Smarter patients, smarter healthcare

Primary role of Technology has been to make life easier and bring down the associated costs for end user. Be it banking, retail or healthcare domain, this basic definition of technology holds good. The way we pay our bills has changed dramatically over the years. Gone are the days when we used to stand in queue to pay the bills, all we need is a few clicks of mouse sitting in the drawing room today to make those payments.

US Healthcare industry has been relatively slower when it comes to technology adoption. We see many big ticket technology implementations happening within Healthcare right now with Electronic Health Record implementation, EDI 5010 changes and ICD 10 implementation. These projects call for investments worth billions of dollars and promise big returns in terms of better healthcare and cost effectiveness in long run. There is another set of innovation happening backing on concepts of health 2.0 which is making difference in our day to day lives.

Health 2.0 has evolved from the concepts of Web 2.0. The term Web 2.0 is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include social-networking sites like Facebook and Orkut, blogs, wikis, video-sharing sites like YouTube, hosted services, web applications etc.

On the similar lines of web 2.0 definition, health 2.0 can be defined as use of a specific set of Web tools (social media, blogs, communities, Podcasts, search, wikis, etc) in healthcare that promote the collaboration among doctors, patients, and other stakeholders in healthcare eco system. Defining characteristics of health 2.0 are active participation, with direct communication - between patients, between professionals, and between patients and professionals.

If the jargon used in above paragraph sounds a bit overwhelming, let us talk about how health 2.0 applications are helping us in day to day life with examples. A decade ago, when someone in my family fell sick, I would have identified the doctor specializing in the treatment related to the ailment, I perhaps would have spoken to family and friends to identify the doctor.  Doctor would then render services to treat the patient. Often times, I would not know much about the medical condition and go by what doctor would advise.

Back to present, when someone in my family fall sick today, I may log on to one of health 2.0 based portals like zocdoc.com or vitals.com for scheduling appointment where I would identify the doctor who treats the medical condition and is contracted under my health plan. I would also read the reviews about the doctor before I schedule the appointment online. After the doctor identifies medical condition during hospital visit, I would go back and read details pertaining to the cause of medical condition, precautions my family member needs to take, experience of other patients who have been treated for similar medical condition on various health content websites like webmd.com. My sick family member could also join support community for specific medical condition on portals like dailystrength.com and derive inspiration from other patients and also make friends on the portal.

I can keep track of my health records online to make sure that I don’t end up spending for unnecessary tests. I could directly upload information from health and fitness devices in moments, automatically to my online health record with help of portals like Google health, MS Health Vault, myoptumhealth.com.

I can compare various health insurance plans in my locality on portals like vimo.com before I zero in on the right plan based on various factors like cost and benefits. I could check for drug interactions, side effects, symptoms or abnormal lab tests to see if drugs are causing those by visiting websites like doublecheckmd.com.

Doctors may interact with each other on social media platform like osmosis that enables verified U.S. licensed physicians to exchange medical knowledge which helps improve patient care.

And the best part is all these innovations in health 2.0 do not cost much to end user. These rather help entire healthcare eco system by transforming patients into active partner in healthcare delivery process where patients make sure they understand the diagnosed medical condition, take extra effort to stick to medication and healthy diet. health 2.0 would make it possible to stem the increase in healthcare expenses, relieve the pressure on staffing levels in hospitals and make healthcare system more efficient.

Health 2.0 would shift the spotlight back onto most important aspect of healthcare, the prevention of various diseases with emphasis on healthier lifestyle, which may bring down the costs substantially.

Author BIO

Apoorv Surkunte has been working in Healthcare IT field for about six years. His expertise lies in healthcare innovations, health reforms and insurer side applications such as provider networks and claims. He is certified project management professional and possesses various international healthcare certifications.