I recently came across the Health 2.0 conferences and just last week, the 3rd Health 2.0 conference concluded in San Francisco with some very interesting topics being discussed. The user-centricity approach is refreshing and only reinforces my thinking around the citizen-centered society in general. I have only read the agenda and some blog entries for the San Francisco conference and I am fascinated by the increased focus on the patient -- and not only on the doctor or insurer (employer). In particular, the collaborative patient-to-patient approach was very encouraging, as also the notion of leveraging user-generated health care data.
I toured the site of PatientsLikeMe.com, to understand just how these ideas are put together in an operating model. Taking the role of a mediator, they facilitate the sharing of information between patient, health care provider, insurer and pharmaceutical or life science vendors. Using collaborative technologies and information management concepts they are creating horizontal networks i.e. between patients which have all the potential to reduce bureaucracy and increase the "time to solution" for all parties involved.
In an earlier post I toyed with the notion of crowdsourcing of diagnoses based on my health care data. This conference has triggered many thoughts on solutions in this space and I even more convinced that Norway can turn these notions into practical ideas since they already have the institutions in place to make this a reality. See this post.
