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A Tech-savvy Physician’s View of Patient Social Networks

This week I have posted as a guest on Shahid Shah's blog, The Healthcare IT Guy.  I discuss how patient focused social networks are impacting how we provide care. Below is an excerpt from the post, which you can read in its entirety here: Guest Article: A Tech-savvy Physician’s View of Patient Social Networks.

Patient social networks are generally either diverse, all purpose communities, such as HealthCentral, MedHelp and RevolutionHealth or disease focused, such as Patients Like Me (neuro-degenerative diseases and mood disorders), Relief Insite (chronic pain), DiabetesMine (diabetes), and I’m Too Young for This (cancer patients from 15-40 years old). As these sites continue to grow in popularity, patients are using these communities to share and discuss daily life struggles or to cope with rare diseases.
 

This is the first in a series of my discussions regarding the "Use of Social Media in Medicine." I encourage you to not only read my post but to also review Shahid's blog. Shahid has spent the past fifteen years working as a consultant, entrepreneur, and CTO in nearly every aspect of Health IT. He provides excellent perspectives and great insights we can all learn from.

Jason Bhan, MD
Co-Founder, Ozmosis