September 25, 2011
Mixed feelings about health 2.0
Written by: Neil Versel
I’m in San Francisco for the fifth annual Health 2.0 Conference. I attended the first two, missed the last two, but this year, I have several reasons for being here, not the least of which is to help out MobiHealthNews with coverage.
I’ve always been conflicted about this conference, and about the whole health 2.0 movement. In some ways, it represents the cutting edge of health IT thinking and consumer engagement. In other ways, it represents Bubble 2.0, with lots of interesting ideas that won’t catch on with the public and/or the healthcare community, as well as companies with no readily evident revenue model. (You know how I feel about style vs. substance.) But the positives generally outweigh the negatives.
Today, there were some pre-conference sessions. The one for doctors seemed like a dog-and-pony show, where various vendors paraded their products in front of an audience. This was my only real astute observation, as posted on Twitter:
It sounded like the Patients 2.0 session was more compelling. Check this Twitter search for more details. Engaging patients is a great idea, but my personal feeling is that the session may have been a little heavy on the kumbaya. To wit:
I’m liking these tweets a little better:
This post is a little heavy on the Twitter for a reason. I expect to be tweeting a lot more than blogging the next two days, mostly due to time constraints. Check out my Twitter feed on the right side of this page, or just go here.
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3 responses to "Mixed feelings about health 2.0"
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Neil, You know I believe you’re the top pure Health IT journalist working in the U.S. today, so I submit this comment with the respect you merit. Please don’t read only “Kumbayah” into the Twitter-search on #patients20. I was the “midwife” of the session, and I can vouch that the session was more than a feel-good meet-up. Please read my write-up of the event at Health Populi here:
http://healthpopuli.com/2011/09/26/patients-2-0-health-citizens-back-into-the-center-of-the-ecosystem/
There is real work and deliverables coming out of these patients coming together: 3 teams are focusing on patient data rights, patient empowerment and management tools, and branding/marketing/communicating about Patients 2.0. People are taking time out of their work-family-community schedules to spend time on these efforts. The final panel at the Health 2.0 Conference 2.0 Conference was the culmination of the 130-some patients crowdsourcing questions to ask the ONC’s Farzad Mostashari and Lygeia Ricciardi. The patients articulated these questions based on their personal experience with the dysfunctional U.S. health system. This isn’t Kumbayah: it’s real life. JSK
Jane, thanks for that. I trust your opinion, so I shall defer to you on that. I know you wouldn’t get behind anything that utterly lacks in substance, so I’ll chalk it up to a few overly enthusiastic tweets. Although the fact that they called you the “midwife” does make me wonder a bit. :)
Someone needs to get the word out about patient empowerment, and methinks the “Care About Your Care” campaign isn’t going to pay off all that much, even though Dr. Oz is involved. Have you heard anyone outside the healthcare industry talk about that campaign? Me either, and it’s nearly halfway over already.
Keep encouraging real people with real life stories like Regina Holliday and Dave DeBronkart. Only people like them–and you–will change consumer attitudes about healthcare.
I’m at RWJF and am glad to see Care About Your Care on your radar. Ten years ago, I’d never have even imagined the potential for consumers to drive health care transformation the way we see it happening now. Still, we need to do more to give consumers the information and tools they need, for sure. For RWJF, CAYC was a first “toe in the water” to help us learn where to go next. While we never imagined that everyone would suddenly be talking about improving the quality of their care as the result of one modest, first-year effort, we have been impressed by early signs that many people heard our message and looked at our materials. And of course, those inside the health system are also an important audience. As we all know — and was evident at 2.0 — many of us need to learn more about why and how to engage consumers in making our work more effective. Where do YOU think we should go from here?