We’ve been writing a lot about the case for mobile in healthcare over the past couple of years. And we’re going to keep writing about it. With one quarter of US adults turning to their mobiles for healthcare information, it’s important that the industry keeps pushing forward with innovative sites, apps and tools that will keep us at the top of our game and, in the end, be useful to the community at large.

To that end, exploring how to better accomplish this is always something we’re interested in. Which is why, on Thursday, January 26^th, some of the crew from Pixels & Pills will be at the BDI Mobile Healthcare Communications 2012 Case Studies and Roundtables.

About the Event:
Consumers and professionals are increasingly using their mobile devices for healthcare information. They are also interacting with healthcare providers and colleagues on their mobile phones. This conference will demonstrate the best case studies of how major healthcare brands are connecting with consumers and professionals through mobile communications.

Speakers and Roundtable Moderators:
Meighan Berberich, Vice President, Marketing, BlogTalkRadio
Lance Hill, CEO, Within3
Scott Hopkins, Executive Vice President, Anderson Direct Marketing
Monique Levy, Vice President, Research, Manhattan Research
Dr. Katherine Malbon, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Adolescent Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital
Talya Miron-Shatz, PhD, Marketing Department, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania
Jenna Mons, Consumer Product Manager for LAP-BAND®, Allergan
Mario Nacinovich, Jr., Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Communication in Healthcare; Managing Director, AXON
Xavier Petit, Shire
John Vieira, Daiichi-Sankyo
Date: Thursday, January 26, 2012
Time: 8:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Place: The Graduate Center of The City University of NY; 365 5th Ave; NY, NY 10016

For additional information, including registration, please click here to visit the event website. Use promo code P&P for a discounted rate of $175.

Hotel Sponsor: Hotel 373 is the official hotel of BDI’s events. Click here to receive a discounted rate

Sponsors:
PR Newswire; Within3; Anderson Direct Marketing; BioCrowd ; Cinchcast; Journal of Communication in Healthcare; Manhattan Research; New York University; Pixels and Pills; Public Relations Society of America – New York Chapter; Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development

By Sven Larsen

These days everyone is familiar with e-commerce. And our more social media savvy readers are probably all clued up on f-commerce (that’s Facebook commerce folks). I’ve even heard Google’s Adwords and Adsense business referred to as g-commerce. But what about the next letter in the alphabet. How come no one is talking about h-commerce?

Make no mistake; healthcare commerce online is big business (A Forrester research report projects 2012 Healthcare spending online will reach $8.7 billion). And the traffic for online health retailers is pretty impressive, too. Drugstore.com, a pioneer in the space nets 4.66 million unique users a month (and a not too shabby $416 mm a year in annual sales). But their traffic pales next to more traditional drug retailers like CVS (6.37 mm uniques per month) and Walgreen’s (10.6 mm uniques per month). And then, of course, there is the 800-pound gorilla of health info online, Web MD with a whopping 16 million unique visitors per month (to put that number in comparison, the New York Times website average 17 mm uniques per month). It’s clear that Americans are more than comfortable obtaining health information online and they’re also comfortable with online purchasing of the drugs and other healthcare products they need. So why aren’t we doing a better job of selling those products to them?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating digital snake oil sales or anything similarly distasteful (or anything that might get anyone in trouble with the FDA). In fact, quite the opposite. As an industry, it’s a real black eye for us that most people associate online drug information with spam e-mails offering cheap Viagra and that most of the discussion of drug sales online revolve around things like obtaining cheap Canadian pharmaceuticals. No wonder the Pharma industry has such a bad reputation with many consumers. While drug manufacturers have sat in their ivory towers doing their best to ignore conversations with consumers, the digital space has been ceded to shady characters who have no interest in preserving brand integrity or serving patient’s needs.

Yes, we’re bound by strict regulatory requirements that preclude us using some of the traditional methods that other consumer marketers use to tout the features and benefits of their products. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t find new and better ways to educate consumers about their health and help them maintain positive lifestyles. Or even just make their lives a little easier.

Consider the plight of a young mother who has just relocated with her family to a city where she doesn’t know anyone. She needs to find a GP she can trust for her family. She needs to find a pharmacist she can trust as well. Maybe one of her children has special needs and she needs to find a local support group. Maybe she just needs to know where that 24-hour drugstore is located. Perhaps she has a prescription that has run out and no one to authorize a refill. What does she do now?

She probably looks at Yelp or one of the many sites that publish HCP reviews. She may type the name of a national drugstore chain into a search engine and find a store at random. And she will spend a lot of time online looking for resources to help her and her family. Not a problem, right? We all know young moms have nothing but time on their hands.

How much better would it be if she were able to go to a one stop portal that contained tons of information about the healthcare resources available in her community? A site that listed HCPs, local specialists, pharmacists and patient support groups. A site that also provided links to educational resources online and e-commerce partners who could help with issues of supply and cost. A site sponsored by one (or several) Pharma companies that provided a real service to the community and a positive representation of our industry online. And, not for nothing, a site that increased compliance and by extension benefitted both the patient and the Pharma company.

The above, is just one example, of ways we can interact with and benefit the end consumer, without violating FDA guidelines. I’m sure our readers could come up with numerous other ideas. The key here is to once again step outside the narrow confines of our traditional industry thinking and to learn from other players in the market. A good start would be for Pharma companies to become more active in the general conversations about online marketing and retailing that take place at sites like INTERNET RETAILER and SHOP.ORG. Ultimately, the end consumer for Pharma is a consumer and we need to realize that despite all the rules that bind us, the purchase funnel for our products is no different than any other.

What do you think? Is this the year we finally start talking about h-commerce?

by Russ Ward (@russcward)

Can science be crowdsourced? Can medicine take advantage of the knowledge of the masses to leapfrog to advances? Can we use social media tools to cure disease?

These are (increasingly specific) questions about the utility of digitally shared intelligence to improve healthcare – sometimes called “citizen science” (similar to “citizen journalism”). While nobody is nominating Mark Zuckerberg for the Nobel Prize just yet, there are definitely signs that social science is paying off. Here are three.

Where it all began: SETI@home

The idea of taking computer power possessed by the multitudes and combining it for science probably dates back to SETI@home, a program first offered to the public in 1999 to donate their superfluous computing power to the search for intelligent life. Still active, the program works by distributing telescope data out for analysis.

Procrastination for science: Foldit

One of the original and best-known examples of crowdsourced medical science is the Foldit project. It takes the complex process of genome folding, and turns it into an online game. If human players can best computers in figuring out biologically “winning” solutions, this can not only provide immediately faster answers, but can also help researchers teach computers those strategies in order to keep improving the pace of their work – whether assisted by computer or volunteer.

Global symptomatology: Health Tracking Network

While SETI@home and Foldit use crowdsourcing in a more detached fashion, using individuals’ resources to solve scientific puzzles, Health Tracking Network asks for your help by sharing your own medical information. High-level information about your cold or flu symptoms will, they hope, allow better predictions and tracking of these viruses and their paths.

There are certainly many naysayers for crowdsourcing in medicine – including this post by John Mack last year, in which he points out the risks associated with having patients “review” their treatments.

However, there are other examples in which citizen science has sped up the time for experiments to be conducted (including this study on tuberculosis).

To me, the difference is an important one. On the one hand, exploiting volunteer or inexpensive human aptitude for completing small nonlinear tasks rapidly can clearly be efficient and effective. On the other hand, relying on anonymous opinions for quality analysis may not be such a great idea – but I don’t think that’s news to anyone who’s been within ten feet of the internet.

Are you working on any projects that harness the power of the people – be they your clients, your patients, your healthcare professionals, or the public at large – to make medical science advance more rapidly, discover more broadly, treat more accurately or predict more closely?

We recently chatted with Paul Simms, Chairman of eyeforpharma, the mastermind behind the ‘Pharmasuiticus reps’ YouTube nature “documentary,” which you may have seen doing the rounds in your social networks.

Pixels&Pills: Why did you decide to make this video?

Paul Simms: We find ourselves quite frustrated with the current situation in pharmaceutical sales management. This is still the area of highest expenditure in medical promotion, and whilst we have seen some movement, there is still a hardcore group resisting the new methods which will ultimately make a great improvement to healthcare at large. This is despite the swathes of industry insiders preaching the need for change. So, to really incite action, we simply went to great lengths to emphasise the ridiculous nature of the once-saturated pharma sales landscape.

P&P: Has it worked?

PS: Depends what you mean.  After a week, there were over 5,000 views without us any real promotion from us, and we’re currently close to 10,000 views, so people are obviously watching and sharing.

Of course, numbers aren’t the point. We hope that it will switch on some light bulbs and make people think about changing their ways of working.  But it’s too early to say whether it has achieved this – ask me again in a year!

P&P: Popular it may be, but some people haven’t liked it, as evidenced by a few detractors on Pharmalot. Do those people have a point?

PS: The main objection seems to be a belief that we are poking fun at the pharma sales rep. And this is a group of people who are going through tough times. There is plenty of fear, diminishing returns and plenty of lay-offs within this group, and we’re kicking them while they’re down.

Laughing at others’ misfortune is certainly not our intention, nor do we want to rub people’s noses in it. The theme of the film was ‘evolution’, not ‘death’: we have used parody in an attempt to reduce or remove the ‘old style’ of rep from the face of the industry and make no apologies for communicating that in the most effective way we can think of. There are now plenty of examples of where a more mature focus on the differing types of customer and an individual level of communication has created great returns – for both the pharma company and patient. The changes within healthcare systems across the world provide an unprecedented opportunity to improve communication and rid this industry of its terrible reputation. But action, not sympathy, is required in order to make that happen.

P&P: What’s next for eyeforpharma?

PS: Well, connected to this film is the 10^th anniversary of our annual flagship event in Barcelona. This time we’re co-locating our eMarketing event with it, so we’ll have more than a thousand people in one space.

It’s interesting to me that whenever we’ve mentioned to the sales community that we’re bringing the online marketers to the same venue, they’ve welcomed this with open arms.

However, the opposite has been true of the online community. Their reaction has been either sheer ambivalence or more of a ‘what, those guys? What have they got to offer?’

For us, it’s clear that progress will only happen when both groups understand how to work together. And we’ve still got a fair bit of work to do in order to answer the question: ‘with 1000 pharma executives in one place, what together can we achieve?’ That’s the opportunity we have. Indeed, e would welcome input from anyone out there as to how to get the most out of this unique gathering. We may even let you take control!

Apart from that, we have a lot more initiatives in the pipeline. Some of them are even quite serious – for example we are currently running a mobile health competition which will really improve the lives of teenage cancer patients. It has backing from Livestrong and 9 other charities and we’re very excited about that.

P&P: And tell us… What will your next acting gig be?

PS: Hopefully none for a while! I hadn’t even intended to be in this one; clearly the camera crew decided I was the most Neanderthal-like and simply had to play the ‘alpha rep’. I guess it’s praise of a sort.

Speaking to our friend Shwen Gwee as part of PharmFresh TV, Todd Park revisits his SXSW presentation on the new healthcare system and open data, while Tim O’Reilly talks Google, advertising, and the parallels with healthcare. The two explain their collaboration on moving healthcare into the future.

by Krissy Goelz (@krisgoelz)

We here at Pixels & Pills are well-known for our vocal support of digital technology and its place in healthcare – how it’s helped medicine and care to advance and to help people better than ever before. But today I wanted to look at one particular facet of healthcare, and how going digital has improved it: the plight of the patient with a chronic or long-term condition. These technologies have made a huge difference in a variety of ways.

It’s given more treatment options to long-term patients.

Not only has research been helped by advances in technology, but communication technology advances have meant that healthcare professionals and patients all over the world are able to know about new treatment options, and new studies of existing treatments, faster and easier than ever before.

It’s created the e-patient movement.

I originally typed “it’s created the empowered patient”, but that’s not entirely true, of course. Patients were taking charge of their own healthcare long ago, to the best of their ability. That’s the key word – it’s that ability that’s changed so much. The internet’s effect on the democratization of information has been a sea change. Dedicated healthcare professionals can find information so much more easily now, but more than that, so can we all – and their patients can, and will, help them do so.

It connects patients with each other.

Not only can e-patients search for information, but they can find each other. This is irreplaceable and invaluable. Patients can share their experiences and provide empathy in a way that only people in the same situation can do. And thanks to digital communications, it’s increasingly independent of location and platform.

It’s helped personalized medicine take shape.

The Is My Cancer Different website is an excellent example of this. Data can be parsed by disease and personal demographics such that a long-term patient can be identified by the specifics of their situation. This enables their healthcare professionals to address their condition based on who they are as whole entities, not just as a case number. A person’s geographic location, family situation, work history, activity requirements, allergies, medical conditions, social standing or any number of other factors can influence what happens. Their time to diagnosis, the accuracy of the diagnosis, the treatment options available, the follow-up, the compliance – it’s all exquisitely sensitive to the patient’s unique case. And, of course, the medical particulars of the condition are the foundation of personalized medicine.

Are you working on any projects that help the long-term patient find and enjoy better care?

by Dennis Portello

Everywhere you turn, a wave of seemingly ever-accelerating technology changes impact our world. From computers to communications, from basic research to go-to-market products, technology has increased productivity and, most would argue, increased our standard of living.

Against that backdrop – not to mention the backdrop of individual lives, full of smartphones, computers, iPads and cars with more computing power than the systems guiding the first moon launch, it’s easy to forget a basic fact:  Not everyone has access to this range of cool technology.

In fact, if you’re reading this on a computer, you’re in the minority, globally speaking. Accessing content on a smartphone? You’re in an even smaller group.

That’s a crucial point in the global healthcare market, where many of the biggest challenges lie in developing nations – places where GDP per capita won’t support basic sanitation or nutrition, much less a new iPhone.

Technology works in healthcare, supporting and providing positive patient outcomes. So what are the leading technologies being adapted for the developing world?

Cheap tablets and computers: On October 5, India launched the world’s cheapest tablet, the Aakash, priced as low as $35. Similarly, One Laptop Per Child‘s XO and Intel’s Classmate PC share a common mission:  Bringing children access to education through computer ownership. Both programs distribute laptops to schoolchildren across the developing world. These efforts are targeted at students and the general populace, but they also present enormous opportunities, both for devices loaded with appropriate software to inexpensively aid medical professionals in the developing world, and for health-related communications to a newly connected population.

Cheap mobile phones: Today, mobile phones are as inexpensive as $15. With more than 5 billion mobile phone subscribers and 90 percent of the world’s population covered by a cell signal, lowering the cost of mobile communications can provide a lifeline to hundreds of millions of people with no access to traditional landline communications. One company sees this as a way to change global healthcare: Medic Mobile is focusing on the lowly text message as a way to change how patients and doctors interact. Can low-tech SMS programs revolutionize global health? The key is ubiquity: In sub-Saharan Africa, for an example, 50 percent of people now have access to a cellphone. Within two years, if not sooner, that figure will jump to 100 percent. No other form of communications technology comes close.

Cheaper sanitation: Keep people’s food and water clean, and you’ll solve a lot of health issues. So it should be no surprise that technology is driving down the cost of sanitation. India’s Tata Chemical has released an affordable – at around $21 – water filter that needs no electricity, yet purifies water to U.S. EPA standards. Although new and not yet pervasive, the filters address an enormous problem: Advocacy group water.org reports that one billion people don’t have access to clean water, and 2.5 billion people don’t have improved sanitation.

If these advances sound a bit like something out of science fiction, then take comfort in the fact that we’ve been here before. From the first vaccines to the first X-ray machines, first MRI devices and first genome sequencing, the march of healthcare has been the story of advances aided by technology. And, at each step along the way, there have been parallel efforts to try and make these technologies more mainstream and less expensive so they can also aid the developing world.

by Jason Brandt (@jasondmg3)

What if there were a coordinated healthcare system in which teams of caregivers focused on sharing information and insights about their mutual patients and preventing health issues before they became critical?

Is it a utopian dream or perhaps the mission statement of an advocacy group? No – it’s the original vision developed two decades ago by the founder of CareMore, a Cerritos, California-based company that serves more than 50,000 Medicare Advantage patients throughout the Southwest. The company’s 26 “care centers” are vastly different from a traditional medical practice, and may offer lessons for achieving greater patient compliance.

CareMore’s model is based on the application of an old systems-management principle first developed at Bell Labs in the 1930s and refined by the management guru W. Edwards Deming in the 1950s: You can fix a problem at step one for $1, or fix it at step 10 for $30.

Most U.S. healthcare is repair-centric, not prevention-centric – big health events occur in the lives of patients, and the system is geared to try and fix them. But what would happen if we prevented the big events in the first place?

This “upstream” intervention approach – as opposed to treating “downstream” outcomes – means CareMore’s overall member costs are 18 percent below the industry average.

What does it look like? Consider these examples:

• A woman with a history of congestive heart failure notices she’s put on three pounds in 24 hours – a sign of possible fluid in her lungs. CareMore noticed too, because her scale wirelessly communicated with the clinic.
• A diabetic who cut his foot and was referred to CareMore had a nurse practitioner clean and dress his wound – and then check on it every two days until they were certain the risk of infection had passed. Had the patient not been able to drive or catch a bus, CareMore would have sent a car.

If that sounds like a luxury take on traditional healthcare, it’s actually just the opposite. CareMore found that, among elderly patients, as many as one-third fail to show up for their doctor appointments because they lack the network of friends and family – or even basic fiscal resources – to make the trip. So this massive area of fundamental noncompliance – getting to a doctor before a small problem turned into a big one – was often replaced with just calling 911 when they got sick.

Against that backdrop, providing transportation for these patients was very cost effective.

The problem of noncompliance isn’t limited to missed appointments. Patients leave prescriptions unfilled, medicines untaken, exercise-and-diet regimens unfollowed, and symptoms unnoticed and unreported.

CareMore’s largest innovation may be in deciding that noncompliance is their issue, not the patients’. And the numbers show that it works: their hospitalization rate is 24 percent below average; hospital stays 38 percent shorter; and amputation rate among diabetics 60 percent lower than average.

Others are watching: In August, CareMore was acquired by WellPoint, which serves 70 million people nationwide directly or through subsidiaries, and has plans to expand the CareMore model.

Of course, it’s easy to draw a distinction between broad-based preventative care and pharma, and the CareMore example may not translate perfectly to the world of pharma marketing and patient communication if for no other reason than pharma is not in a primary-caregiver role. But there is now significant evidence that making compliance our issue rather than the patient’s pays long-term benefits, both in terms of cost and patient outcomes.

by DJ Edgerton (@wiltonbound)

Thinking back just 20 years ago, there were a limited number of communication options: the phone call, the letter, the fax. A person’s digital habit – though not thought of in that way – was limited to television or radio, save for a few early adopters exploring computer technology. Today we have a staggering breadth of communication and digital tools, but are they making it easier to communicate?

Not necessarily. People’s digital habits vary across generations and locations, making it tricky if not impossible to come up with a one-size-fits-all communication strategy. You can have the right message, but if it is delivered through the wrong medium you won’t achieve your intended results.

It is critical to understand how different audiences are using various social tools and digital technology, determine what they expect to get out of it, and then tailor message delivery accordingly. By addressing the digital habits of consumers and health care practitioners, marketers and other communicators can ensure messages reach their intended audience, deliver value, and inspire action while getting a better return on their communication investment.

A good place to start is by looking at different demographics. Millennials and Baby Boomers are both social media and technology aficionados as is evident by the saturation of users, but their digital habits and expectations differ.

Millennials are less likely to use email, saying it’s too slow or cumbersome. However, Baby Boomers are likely to react positively to email communication such as a newsletter delivered to their inbox. Having not grown up in a world of brevity and online distractions, they might have more patience to read something longer than a 140-character tweet or short text messages.

While social media is ubiquitous, there are communication nuances that need to be taken into consideration. Millennials or Gen Y are comfortable with the rapid pace of social media, but they may not respond to a friend’s text messages or Facebook post immediately for fear of appearing “un-cool” or without anything better to do. Yet, they expect companies to respond immediately to their inquiries. Meeting this expectation requires regular monitoring and designated social media experts to ensure timely responses.

Same-day or next-day feedback across all digital communication platforms is a fairly common expectation. However, older adults who are still navigating new technologies and social platforms may appreciate an auto-response that acknowledges their inquiry or lets them know when to expect a response.

Also, even though both groups may be avid Facebook users, what they expect to get out of socializing in that manner can vary. For example, younger users may use the “like” function to demonstrate association with a brand, celebrity or particular thought. Cool by association is a popular currency with this demographic and what their friends say and do is likely to be influential. Older people are also influenced by peer experience, but they may expect something in return, such as receiving a coupon as a reward for their participation.

A younger audience may place greater value on interactivity, which is why games are appealing to many digital users. Even while watching TV, many people are surfing the Web or looking for places to interact as they multitask. If you’re seeking to capture the attention of younger workers or patients, consider integrating apps and other tools that encourage interactivity into the marketing mix.

As smartphone and tablet adoption continues to escalate, paying attention to mobile habits is also important. Healthcare practitioners today can access health records or electronic prescribing applications right from their handheld. Tech-savvy physicians may present patients with an iPad while they wait to be seen to help them learn more about their condition or treatment. Those practitioners catering to a geriatric community might have more success forgoing digital communication altogether and using more traditional outlets such as printed pamphlets and newsletters.

With an expanding set of ways to reach your target audience, it’s essential to consider digital habits and demographics to determine the best mode of communication. Television advertising, comprehensive websites, online newsletters, video, email, mobile or social networks are all viable platforms. However, ensuring success requires addressing the digital habits of your audience.

by Krissy Goelz (@krisgoelz)

Recently, we were asked what we thought about how Google+ could affect healthcare, by someone who had read an Xconomy post on the same question.

So, does this newest, mega-hyped social network have the potential to really transform the industry? As you’ve seen with our many point/counterpoint articles, we like to pick up an issue and look at it from all different sides. And certainly this question has a few possible answers. Let’s look at them.

“Yes! Google+ is already transforming healthcare.”

Like the rest of Google+, it’s getting there, just maybe a little more slowly than we expected. As one piece of evidence, just look at this list (curated by Ed Bennett of the University of Maryland Medical Center) of hospitals on Google+. (You probably know Ed from his encyclopedic and invaluable Hospital Social Network List.) It’s not huge, but it’s a sign. Hospitals realize that they need to find new ways of communicating and advertising in order to survive in an ever more competitive. They haven’t historically been known for being cutting-edge in social media, so you could argue that their presence on Google+ is a sign that it’s gaining mainstream acceptance.

The main way in which Google+ could change healthcare, or any industry, is in its revolutionizing the concept of sharing. Thanks to Google+, sharing is no longer an all-or-nothing proposition. And that, friends, is what will change the game. You don’t want everyone you know to be privy to your health history – you want that information available only to a very select group of people, who can only do very select types of things with your data. A year ago, social networking didn’t offer that ability. Today, thanks to Google+, it’s not only feasible, but extant.

“No! Google+ won’t have much effect on healthcare at all.”

On the other hand, it’s not likely, the skeptics say, that Google+ could transform an industry when it can barely transform itself into a social network. This is mostly a reaction borne of the disappointment people feel. The network arrived like a cannon blast, but has since fallen to more like kazoo-level excitement. Some pessimists say it’s never going to rise above that level. A social network does need a good structure, but it also needs the user-supplied content to succeed. Without that, it’s just a skeleton. So with people not using Google+… well, if it falls in the forest, will anyone care?

“Maybe? Google+ could matter to healthcare… or it could not.”

The potential effect of Google+ on healthcare depends upon the long-term health of Google+. Thus far, reports of its death, like Mark Twain’s, have been greatly exaggerated. Don’t forget that Facebook didn’t come out of nowhere; it’s just that when anything hits its tipping point, it seems to. Perhaps Google+ will come to nothing, and then, obviously, it won’t change healthcare. But what if its biggest rival, Facebook, does put a foot wrong, and Google+ seizes the opportunity? Then, it may change our social networking, our relation to friends and family, and, certainly, it could also change our healthcare.

Bottom line? It’s too soon to know… but it might not be Google+ who does it.

I can’t in good conscience be as optimistic as Rich Whalley and Steve Dickman, the authors ofthe original post that brought up this topic. They seem to believe pretty wholeheartedly that Google+ is changing the healthcare game. But while the geeks (and I count myself among them) were all thrilled about Google+, in the months since its launch, it’s fallen fallow – and I don’t know for sure if it can come back.

However, what does intrigue me was something our friend Jon Richman had to say recently about the new Facebook Timeline – and, in particular, the new ability to add “health and wellness” updates. Here’s a bit of what he had to say:

They even suggest a few to get you started (“Broke a Bone”, “Had a Surgery”, “Overcame an Illness”). However, you can put in anything you want here. One of the big reasons why people don’t share health information publicly, including Facebook, is because they don’t see others doing it. It’s not the norm. Well, sharing your location wasn’t the norm a few years ago, but people started doing it via “checkins” and now it’s pretty common among a large percentage of people. The question is whether this will extend to sharing health information.

My prediction is that it will. Not today or tomorrow, but in the near future. The tipping point will be when people start noticing some benefit for sharing this information. There really isn’t much incentive now. However, if you knew that you’d get better care by sharing this information, you probably would.

That, to me, is the crux of the matter. When we can use social networks to help patients help themselves faster and better than they could be cared for otherwise – that’s the transformation, the tipping point, the revolution.

So what do you think? Is Google+ going to revolutionize healthcare? Is Facebook? Do social networks have this capability at all? And if they do, what will patients use it for – what will that killer-app functionality be?