“The difficulty with becoming a patient is that as soon as you get horizontal, part of your being yearns, not for a doctor, but for a medicine man”

Shana Alexander

Image Author:Nevit Dilmen

Health 2.0 movement has gathered momentum,it is no longer just another word followed by numbers and decimal point.The term has already entered into mainstream media with the article in Economist journal.The recently concluded conference on Health 2.0 has also added a vibrant debate on Health 2.0 transformation into a separate industry.

Questions still arise about the difference between Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0.Are they two different terms or just synonyms or hype!

Health 2.0 is still being defined with the following definition from Health 2.0 org web wiki: “New concept of health care wherein all the constituents (patients, physicians, providers, and payers) focus on health care value (outcomes/price) and use competition at the medical condition level over the full cycle of care as the catalyst for improving the safety, efficiency, and quality of health care” – Last updated on May 25, 2007

Health care companies which are riding the waves of web 2.0 movement are major players in this movement.

Medicine 2.0 as a term is still to be defined. Medicine 2.0 Visual representation

Medicine is derived from mederi “to heal,” originally “know the best course for,” As medicine is an ever changing area,in next generation of medicine management, diagnosis and treatment of diseases could be based on the spirit of collaboration and sharing of patient related knowledge globally.Unlike the era in which a small group of ‘experts’, who controlled mass media, simply fed us data,the next generation of disease management could be based on collaboration,sharing of knowledge and also discussion among physicians and other health care professionals.

Disease prevention could play a key role in medicine 2.0 movement with focus on Individual centric treatment or Personalized Health Application.

Personalized health care is also gathering momentum,with the release of the recent report titled Personalized health care:opportunities,pathways and resource by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.Also in the October 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review,there is a strong debate about the role of Personalized medicine and how it could cause paradigm shift in management of patients in future.

But,the goal of these movements either Health 2.0 or Medicine 2.0 should be the same,to focus on Individual based care and delivery of optimum treatment to patients.

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“It should be the function of medicine to help people die young as late in life as possible”
Ernst Wynder

Convergence of Health information technology and Genomics to offer personalized medicine will be the wave of the future.Although it is quite early to predict the outcome,but essentially the goal is to prolong life by offering preventive management for diseases. The recent report on Personalized health care:opportunities,pathways and resource by the United States Department of Health and Human Services provided insights for individual centric based health care.

One of the key barriers in achieving the goal of personalized medicine is due to inability of current patient records to integrate with patient data as they are filed under different settings and across various health care providers.Assimilation of these data in one package could enable not only health care providers to provide better management of patients but also aid patients during medical emergencies.

The report also states that:”In addition, while controlled clinical trials remain the staple of progress in biomedical science, the additional wealth of information that might be reaped from millions of encounters in day-to-day medical practice remains untapped.”

Envisioning a new generation of health care delivery which has focus on prevention and individual disease management will be the cornerstone of medicine 2.0.

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