Continuing the discussion of "new business models", it occurs to me that, perhaps, an important clue to the future of Healthcare Consumerism may be on the other side of communities: we've all heard plenty about social networks at the individual level; but, what about the natural communities of service vendors that form the nucleus of an individual's health plan? Physicians, pharmacies, insurers, disease managers, etc., ALL play integral roles; but rarely are they integrated in eye of the end-user. How does the individual, trying to optimize a consumer-driven-health-plan, know what her options are. Are they covered? Are they cost-effective? Which is best? Etc.
In much the same way that retailers of most other things have located near one another -- e.g., car dealer parkways, jeweler blocks, shopping malls, etc -- healthcare product and service providers will need to find ways to array their complimentry and competitive offers in juxtaposition to one anothers.
Doug's comments are right on target. Even Harvard is into Social Networking. The following was posted on another blog that describes the developing participation of providers and the patients on line through social networks.
Harvard Health Publications is teaming with online networking site Gather.com (think Facebook for Boomers) to connect consumers with Harvard docs online.
Harvard’s content aims to help consumers with specific health issues, ranging from diabetes to insomnia. (Gather.com also worked with LifeMasters Supportive Self-Care on the project.) In the venture, Harvard docs blog and engage in discussions with consumers.
The Health Blog talked with HHP editor in chief Anthony Komaroff, an internist and 35-year Harvard veteran, about the benefits and drawbacks of online health information.
Q: How does this new venture work?
A: We blog and then we read and comment on what readers are saying about the blog. It’s really impressive how many people, speaking from personal experience, will say something that’s very insightful about the topic we’ve blogged about, things that hadn’t come to mind. When you’re simply broadcasting information, it’s a one-way transmission. That can be very useful. But when part of a real dialogue, it’s more meaningful and sticks better because patients are involved in it, and they challenge it. Also, it’s a different voice when you’re blogging. It’s first-person, more casual and friendly. We think that’s fun to do from our standpoint.
Q: The Health Blog can’t argue with you there. But what about liability?
A: There’s no concern about liability. We’re really not practicing medicine. There is a concern about accountability. All of the content we publish goes through an internal review process. We think that should be the norm. Blogs are read by one other party. The subsequent comments, the back and forth, aren’t. It has to be dynamic and real-time. I read what’s happening, but we’re not editing in advance of it going out there.
Q: Do the doctors who contribute still practice?
A: They’re all very actively practicing doctors who carve time out of their day– and more often, time out of their night–to do this. They’re highly respected by their peers for their medical skills.
Q: Many doctors gripe about patients getting misleading information from the Internet. What do you say to that?
A: We’re a free society. And as long as we are, and we value that, we can’t avoid the fact that there’s all sorts of information out there, including misinformation. Good information and misinformation can be spread at the speed of light. It is a problem that patients walk in with misinformation, and we have to spend part of our diminishing time with them explaining why it’s baloney.
Q: So, where do you think online health information fits in?
A: When I became a doctor, the typical patient wanted the doc to tell them what to do. They didn’t say, what are my options? Now there’s a general appetite for info and a specific desire to be part of the decision of the care. Of the many things that makes the Web a bigger development than Gutenberg’s press is the fact that the moment a question comes to your mind, anywhere in the world, if you have a Web connection to your cellphone or PDA, whether you’re at a base camp below Mt. Everest, or sitting on a couch in your living room, you have a way of getting an answer.
But the other really important thing is that online health information allows communities to form. People have a huge appetite for information from authoritative professionals, but they have an enormous appetite to hear from other people like them. That sort of peer-to-peer communication is enormously important. If you can do it with a professional who’s part of the conversation, not dominating it, but part of it, and the peers, you have the best of both worlds. That’s a healthy mix.
Posted by: RonBachman | December 27, 2007 at 09:49 AM
Interesting; gather.com is the community which ran a writing competition in partnership with Simon and Schuster, and in which I entered my Church of the Epistles novel. It is fairly small and arty, so I'm interested in the shifts within it.
Posted by: | December 27, 2007 at 07:03 PM
By the way, my last post appears to have been anonymous, which is a fascinating trend itself within social networking. I have my own blog at garethjyoung.com/blog (this blog won't accept html tags required for this to work as a link - you'll have to cut and paste) and won't name me unless I am also a typepad member. Given that I have so many blogging accounts already, this is of no interest. The limitation exists for anti-spam reasons, but it is a real encumbrance, turning this, I fear, into a private community. Unless I am missing something - and if so, please someone point it out.
Posted by: | December 27, 2007 at 07:07 PM
yeah sure.
Posted by: | February 06, 2008 at 03:23 PM