By Rob
One of the main things that struck me during and after my visit to Health 2.0 was the emphasis on the concept of consumers uploading their health data to various applications like Google Health and Microsoft Health Vault. Microsoft presented there, and Google did not, although Missy Krasner, Google’s Product Marketing Manager was inundated with “well wishers” and “very interested third parties!”
First Google Health Screenshots . It struck me as a huge privacy issue that people would be willing to upload their personal health data onto the web, but as Steve Case pointed out at the 7th Annual ePharma Summit in January, who would have thought 15 years ago, that people would not only be submitting their credit card data to on-line sites, but allowing them to store the details for added convenience! There was also a lot of discussion of sites targeting their content (and advertising) to specific types of patients and disease states, which would also involve healthcare consumers revealing personal data, or at least interests.
Probably what impresses me more is the growing importance and influence of user-generated sites and content by patients themselves, with specific medical issues and conditions. Amy Tenderich’s excellent site, Diabetes Mine - the all things diabetes blog, is a great example of this. As is Matthew Zachary’s I'm too Young For This! : A Place For Young Adults Affected By Cancer . These patients have become a great source of comfort, resources and knowledge, in their particular areas or expertisE.
Finally, being a videophile, I am continually impressed by the proliferation of quality media available on sites like WebMD , as well as a less well-known, but excellent site for healthcare video, icyou (Disclaimer: Johnson & Johnson has placed a limited amount of video material on icyou.com.)