Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Social Media and Health Care 2.0


What I find interesting these days is the health care industry-- an industry that is worth billions. It is an industry that never sleeps and it caters for our health care needs 24/7/365. We have seen lots of changes over the past decade in the development of science and technology and to this aspect, the health care industry has also kept up with it.

This growing change has led the health care industry to fuse and keep up with the need of creating an awareness and the spread of information about health care, medicine and body to individuals worldwide, through the use of the internet and social media today. Many Physicians and Bio-medics are working hard to create online projects that provide information on health care, medicine and the body that can benefit the world at large.

Here are some projects and reviews on the Online Health Care Industries:

MedPedia

MedPedia is a global project that provides information through their 'living encyclopedia', which consists of health, medicine and body. It is the 'Wikipedia' of Medicine and it is to be available freely to individuals around the world. MedPedia is calling for content and are currently working along with Physicians, Health Organizations, Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School and other leading global health organizations, and they are all working very hard behind the scenes by compiling a comprehensive medical resource that can soon help and provide information to millions around the world.

Practice Fusion

Practice Fusion is another project that provides health care information to doctors and patients at no cost. Practice Fusion claims to reduce cost and allows medical practitioners to provide high level of care to their patients as they are committed to contribute to the community and believe that there should be equality in the standards of healthcare between individuals no matter where they come from.

Health World Web

Health World Web is an online social network of patient community. On the site, members can ask questions, post a blog, add a doctor and share your healh care experiences that you have had. The site boasts to have more than 1.5 million doctors and dentists in a range of specialties. In fact, it is a good platform for individuals to share their health care experience and even share their doctors or hospital contact information with others who might need some care or advice.

The Doctors Channel

The Doctors Channel is an online web tv that enables doctors or individuals to watch, listen and learn from doctors alike. It is a free service for everyone and it allows doctors to share ideas with one another fast and easy with the latest news and information and the changing face of the health care industry. The site provides medical and non-medical information to individuals that is reviewed by their team of physicians, writers and doctors.

OR Live

OR Live is another social media project that provides live and on-demand online video streaming which focuses on new medical breakthroughs and procedures from world renown medical centers and hospitals. OR Live are one of the leaders in health care broadcasting, where they have developed more than 600 live and on-demand events with over 2000 hours of programming.

Patient UK

Patient UK is an online information source or patients. The site provides information on health care needs that are usually provided by general practitioners to their patients during their consultation. Patient UK, is currently a market leader and have their systems installed in more than 50% of the GP's Clinics in the UK. The site is aimed to provide good quality information to individuals about health care and disease and for health care and medical professionals outside the UK to obtain health care information from a UK source.

All of these sites do provide good resources in the health care industry. There have been many developments and progress in the health care industry. It keeps growing from day to day with the aim of providing good quality information by creating the awareness and providing free access and information to anyone at will.

However, you should not take this for granted. Although, the information provided in these sites are current or authoritative, you should not substitute such information for any professional face to face advice from a doctor. The content of such sites should be treated as informational purpose only.

2 comments:

www.healthcarescoop.com is another great health care information source. It's all about sharing health care experiences.

Thanks for the link... I will have a look at the site..

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