Friday, April 18, 2008
Completely New Health VC
This story, of patients sharing very personal information, amazes me. It is a completely different health virtual community than what we've talked about before. I'd even argue that it is a combination of the objective "scientific" medical web sites and a supportive one. Truly, we cannot anticipate the ways the internet is going to change the way we interact with each other. I had to get (too) extreme, but I think the internet is going to change the way established groups in society fundamentally interact.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I think web communities like these are a big help to the patients. They can give each other options and information that their doctor’s don’t know about. One problem is that prescriptions don’t affect everyone the same way. So if taking a higher dose of something helps one person it doesn’t mean it’s going to help another person. This is a good example of a mixed group, they are giving emotional support but also information. People on these sites just need to make sure that they share their finds with their doctor because not everything you read on the internet is correct.
After reading the NY Times article, I was really impressed with this website. I have known family members and friends to seek medical advice on the Internet, but unfortunately, so much of the information is subjective.
I think this is a step in the right direction in getting information more scientific.
At the same time, I think we are far from Internet resources being able to accurately diagnose someone with various diseases and syndromes. The technology isn't there. A physician may know how to filter out irrelevant symptoms, wherease this algorithm is not there for technology.
I agree with Erin here. Rather than sticking with pure opinion, it goes beyond that, and actually collects data for end users. Good start for medicine on the web.
Word of mouth is always one of the best ways to spread news, so why wouldn't it work here? In the first example in the article, the man only figured out what was wrong with him when he met others with the same symptoms. Only after speaking with them, he made a self-diagnosis.
This opens the door to potential problems though. Possible Hypochondriasis , misconstruction of symptoms, and over generalization are all problems that could occur. But like Erin said, is technology fool proof when it comes to self-diagnosis?
Post a Comment