Liveblog Health 2.0: Health-Management Tools for Consumers
October 23, 2008 by Craig Stoltz
What sort of digital tools are available to health consumers to help them manage the healthinfosphere–and [not to put too fine a point on it]–their health?
Kevin Noland, CEO, ADAM
iPhone app: the Adam Health Navigator. Puts personalized health content on iPhone–click a body part on an image of the body, or search for information. Essentially it puts commodity-level health information on the small screen. Cool features, some geomobile-related some leveraging multi-function nature of iPhone: Find nearest ER; prompt to call 911; educational videos for conditions; connect to doctors in your neighborhood.
David Clymer, CEO, MyMedLab
Web-based tool lets you choose a lab test online. A physician approves order instead of a doctor’s visit in real life. You can find a lab in your area. The tools help you choose tests based on gender, age and disease profile. Results interpreted by an MML doctor and put in your PHR. Key detail: Results can be completely confidential.
Linda Avey, co-CEO, 23andMe
A user provides a saliva sample, and can get information about genetic risks. The idea: Add genetic information into the healthcare system at a consumer level. An analysis is sent to a personal dashboard page, which provides a simple analysis of risk. Click on an indicated risk, you can read hyperlinked research reports. The science team reviews research papers based on the “confidence” level of potential clinical application. Key detail: You can also provide ancestry information to add information to your risk profile.
Mari Baker, CEO, Navigenics
Also processes saliva samples and creates a dashboard of potential risks, including approximate mathematical risks compared to the population and total estimated risk. Also it indicates what percentage of your total risk is based on genetics, as opposed to controllable factors. The service also provides information that helps you reduce risks for those conditions for which you [may] have a genetic predisposition. Key detail: Added information provided to help people manage risks responds to the but-what-can-I-do-about-it-if-I-learn-I-have-elevated-personal-risk objection.
Adam Bosworth, CEO, Keas
A preview of a health management service not yet debuted. It links to HealthVault and Google Health personal health records. A lab archive shows you how your data changes over time, with some visualizations of progress vs. targets. Creates a “to-do” list to identify the behaviors you need to change, including food, exercise, lab tests, etc. Also takes into account of what foods you currently eat, your ethnicity, etc. Suggests food preferences with visuals, reporting calories and what the effect will be on your weight over time. Minor feature: Video education and feedback based on progress and needs.
Ray Schoenberg, CEO, American Well
Virtual office visits via online tools–its first market is Hawaii [only place it's currently available]. Carries you from “Talk Now” with an available online physician to your credit card information to authorize a co-pay and “talk” with a physician. He has your information and can decide whether to engage with you. He talks to you on screen and you can do live chat. Information is audited, summarized and sent [if you like] to your primary care physician. Key fact: It’s a 10-minute session. If you are not insured, you can go onto the system with a credit card or ATM and have a virtual visit.
Stan Nowak, CEO, Silverlink
A phone-based reminder/coaching/feedback system. An automated voice, drawing on your personal profile, reminds you that [for instance] your prescriptions need refilling. This presumably happens automatically. The voice offers the idea of switching to the generic alternative, with an offer to contact your physician to see if the change is approved. Observation: For an automated phone program, the voice is very. . .human-ish.
Michael Cho, DestinationRx
A tool for comparison shopping of Rx meds, offering alternatives– but [first] also warning you about potential drug interactions and safety. Once safety and interactions are screened, you get data on therapeutic alternatives and cost savings for drugs you currently take, including generics and drugs on lower co-pay tiers on your healthcare plan. It will also allow you to contact the drugstore and place the order. Additional feature: The platform helps navigate the complexities of choosing a Medicare Part D plan, including the potential savings, comparing premiums vs. out-of-pocket costs.
Erick VonSchweber, CEO, PharmaSurveyor
Premise: It’s not just interactions, but toxicities involved with each drug that can affect patients. This tool reveals a much broader assessment of med risks. By integrating with partners like DestinationRx, this tool provides an additional layer of safety and vetting using powerful math and analytics. Risk is shown for each drug, plus the cumulative risk of an entire multi-drug regimen. By adding personal information about the side-effects the patient is showing, it can link side-effects to the current drugs. Then it can do a diagnosis showing where the risk is coming from, with an option to show potentially safer options that still deliver the needed therapeutic benefits. Observation: Very powerful data-analysis tool that, while a bit cumbersome to use and hard to navigate, appears to raise the bar for drug-regimen-analysis tools. Rx: Usability treatment regimen.
Marlene Beggelmann, CEO, Enhanced Medical Decisions, DoubleCheckMD
This tool reviews a patient’s recent treatments and personal health records, providing an analysis of the treatments and user directives. This information can go back to the doctor for review, potentially driving better treatment decisions. Can also be used proactively as a way to recommend future treatments. Able to continue to monitor treatments over time, providing update of recent information for treating physicians. Observation: Appears to deliver consumer value, but will be interesting to see how doctors welcome these suggestions and reviews of their treatment decisions.
Stefanie Fenton, Director of Market Development, Intuit’s Quicken Health Group
Helps you manage your bills–as Quicken itself does for taxes and business expenses. You can have bills put in Health Expense Tracker [with insurers who cooperate] to see what’s due, status of deductibles, “special circumstances,” etc. Permits you to analyze and pay bills. You can see whether you’ve refilled prescriptions. This all becomes a financially-based personal health record. Thinking aloud: How valuable is this compared to the information and services you get from your insurer? And does it fully replicate the personal health record? Or is this just a layer on top of those services that provide visibility and clarity?
Nice new design.
Hey Craig, where’s the skepticism for these “new” services??!
What do most of these new services have to do with Web 2.0 and empowering patients or having them interact in some type of social network?
Sorry, maybe I’m missing something, but this just looks like a bunch of vendors touting their software tools. Very old school. Very Web 1.0.
Joe the Tradesman:
Thanks for your note. You’re correct on all points. I plead guilty on all charges.
HAVING SAID THAT [bet you knew those words were coming], let me explain this entry, and indeed my involvement with the “Health 2.0″ [note quotes] “movement” [quotes again.]
1. The Health 2.0 Conference is partly about social web technologies [patient groups, physician networks, knowledge sharing platforms, etc.] and partly about other technologies that can drive healthcare reform via connectivity, transparency, system integration, digital care delivery and so on. Even though I’m a social web guy, for instance, I moderated panels on vertical search tools in the health space, which [for the most part] don’t involve social media. So my good friends at Health2.0Con don’t define the field as centrally about the social web. It’s about how various technologies can to improve healthcare and–who knows?–health.
So my blogging about this session falls strictly outside my usual subject matter.
2. Skepticism? Hey, man, I was liveblogging, and hit “publish” on this puppy before the session had formally ended. I managed to get some into the final lines of a few text chunks, but mostly not.
3. Were the the panelists up there pitching their tools as acts of shameless promotion for their companies, their stock prices, and their sacred fortunes?
To quote the likely loser of the 2012 presidential election: You betcha!
Again: Thanks for your note. Seriously. Helps sharpen the mind.
So if Health 2.0 has morphed from empowering patients with tools that put them at the center, and instead is just another marketing term to describe any product a company is selling in this space, does it really have any meaning to anyone?
Quicken for health? A telephone reminder and coaching service? A storefront for meds? (What online meds store doesn’t tell you about drug interactions??) These have nothing to do innovating in health technology, or putting the patient first, or arguably, with Health 2.0 at all. I’m not sure what they’re doing at this kind of conference.
I know I’m just shooting the messenger here, it’s not your conference. But it’s sad to see how quickly this conference moved from being relevant to being irrelevant (despite the number of attendees).
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