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?

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.

by DJ Edgerton (@wiltonbound)

The question seems almost nonsensical at first – your Twitter followers may be really outstanding people, but they’re not organic chemists or researchers. And your Facebook fans, while devoted, probably do not, generally speaking, know how to move a new drug through the FDA approval process.

Just the same, it’s a mistake to discount your social audiences as a source for insight and innovation. In fact, a wide range of category-leading companies do just that. While social media is not as planned or controlled as a focus group, there’s potential in polling the audience when it comes to research and development – and along the way you can even benefit the very people you’re polling.

Doing it right requires a three-step plan:

Understand what you want to accomplish. In this regard, social media is no different than traditional R&D research: Don’t ask existing or potential customers anything without a clear purpose behind “the ask.” What do you want to accomplish? Are you looking for feedback on a service (such as when consumers call into the customer care center) or improvement on a product or direction for a new advertising campaign? What about new products: Are you exploring the potential for one or looking at whether your customers have a need for a product that you have not thought of?

A solid roadmap will have goals covering what you hope to accomplish and clear indications of which social channels are – and are not – appropriate. Need to demo a product? You Tube makes sense. On the other hand, Twitter may be a better fit for simple questions requiring quick feedback. And tools like custom Facebook apps offer ways to bring customers and fans into the content creation process.

Be relevant in your questions and rigorous in your data collection. A solid roadmap lays out needs and expectations, but even the best plans can go astray if your research questions don’t balance your needs with the realities of social media, which often boil down to: Don’t be boring.

Tweets sending people to a 50-question survey or requests that Facebook followers sit through six sample commercials in search of the one they like best are unlikely to go anywhere. Instead, keep things short, clear and – most importantly – be ready to monitor and take feedback from the conversations that grow out of your public questions. They can be the source of tremendous insight.

Crunch the data and don’t leave the audience in the dark. One of the unique aspects of social media is that a lot of silos get knocked down – people have a great (and sometimes unreasonable) desire to peek behind the corporate curtain and know what’s going on. This is a powerful force and can jump-start your social-driven research – people love to be treated like insiders, and promising to give them a first peek at a new innovation, a new campaign or even just a slight change in how your company does something will motivate participation in your research.

The key is: You have to deliver on your promise. If you tell participants you’re working on a new way to talk about an established product and want their input, give them a peek before it’s rolled out to the public. Not doing so is bad form in the social landscape; promising to do it and then not delivering is an even bigger faux pas.

Whether it’s a one-drug boutique company or a global powerhouse, research and development is a constant part of pharma’s product and service lifecycles. While social media isn’t a substitute for formalized marketing research, it can be a powerful, low-cost augmentation to the toolbox.

by Briana Campbell (@MsMatchGirl)

“If it’s not mobile, it won’t work in 2012 and beyond,” Jason Falls is quoted as saying in Awareness Networks 2012 Social Marketing and New Media Predictions. “We’re a marketplace conditioned to look down on our screen first. It’s not a B2C vs. B2B thing. If your users are people, you’re going to need to be mobile.”

We’ve been talking about the importance of thinking mobile not just for pharma and healthcare marketing, but to provide much needed health services in the developing world for a while now. We feel strongly that including a mobile strategy in your plans will not only help you stay in business, it will help push innovation in healthcare to the next level.

With people turning more and more to the “second screen,” it’s important for us to think on how that screen can be best utilized. From The Department of Health & Human Services Health Data Initiative, which encouraged competitors to innovate around open data available from the government to make smartphone apps to improve health, to the insights shared by Jonathan Richman in his 2011 SXSWi presentation, “Your Computer is the Next Wonder Drug,” digital innovation is what is moving the world of healthcare forward. And pharma needs to keep pace.

Some quick facts for your consideration:

By 2015, 500 million people will be using mobile healthcare applications. [source]

Smartphones will offer the best opportunities for mobile health by 2015. [source]

17% of cell phone owners, or 15% of adults, have used their phone to look up health or medical information. [source]

Later this month, we’ll be at the Mobile Healthcare Communications 2012: Case Studies and Roundtables, taking place January 26, 2012 in NYC. This half-day conference will present case studies demonstrating how major healthcare brands are connecting with consumers and professionals through mobile communications. Case studies will be presented by representatives from Allergen, Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center – New York, Daiichi-Sankyo, and more. Interactive roundtables will follow the presentations. We’re looking forward to learning more about what companies have been successfully doing with mobile in the healthcare space, and talking about how we can keep innovating.

Use promo code P&P for a discounted rate of $175.

Date: Thursday, January 26, 2012
Location: The Graduate Center of The City University of NY
365 Fifth Avenue (at 34th Street), Conference Level C, New York, New York 10016
Website: http://www.bdionline.com/mobilehealthcare2012.html
Discount Code: P&P

by Jason Brandt (@jasondmg3)

For over half a century, the Breathalyzer has given law-enforcement officials a portable, fairly reliable instrument to test for, and prevent, driving under the influence.

However, when you start to listen to the critics of the technology complain that diabetics, dieters, hyperventilaters, mouthwash users, cold medicine users or smokers can have incorrect results (either damaging the sensors or inaccurately finding the subjects to be more, or less, inebriated than they may actually be) – you start to wonder:

If a Breathalyzer can pick up these other compounds, why can’t it be made to test for more than just alcohol?

Well, of course, you wouldn’t be the first to have this thought. It’s being called “disruptive” – but isn’t this the nature of all technological advances? Their goal is to make data available more rapidly and with less difficulty.

Obviously, diagnosing diabetes is an obvious place to start, as the existing technology already can pick it out sometimes. Additionally, you’ve probably heard over the years that dogs have been trained to identify the breath of people with cancer. Lung and breast cancer are being “sniffed” out in clinical tests now. Liver disease is, kidney disease, heart disease, even schizophrenia may be in the cards.

I can speculate about others, even though I’m not a scientist. Mental illnesses like anxiety, stress and panic attacks are often accompanied by physical manifestations that could be measured by checking how rapidly and shallowly you might be breathing.

And of course, there are pulmonary conditions like asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis and maybe even the common cold. Measuring the frequency and depth of breathing, in addition to the compounds exhaled, can help diagnose and manage conditions.

While we’re at it, perhaps it could compare the ambient temperature with your exhalation to see whether you’re running a fever.

I can envision the morning where puffing into a mouthpiece – part Breathalyzer, part spirometer, part thermometer – is as much a part of my routine as hopping on the scale. My simple efforts of a couple of seconds, using my scale, exhaler, and Magic Mirror (see Krissy’s Nov. 10 post), would be rapidly, brilliantly, noninvasively working to collect, analyze, report and share a wealth of information about me – all while I’m still stumbling around half asleep.

Now, if only one of them could floss for me and remember to pack my gym bag.

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 Sven Larsen

Physicist Michael Neilsen discussed open research in a March TEDX event, the video of which was recently posted.

As a rule, the academic community lives to publish. Mathematicians, scientists, researchers, think tanks, physicians, biomedical researchers: most times, their stock in trade is their byline. But just as a journalists’ byline has come to mean a position of curator of information rather than a sole creator, so this must change here too.

A journalist is now very likely to include citizen-journalism-sourced information in their story. Large Facebook groups are used as support for the event’s importance. Tweets break stories, or in the event of celebrity drama, can be the story themselves. Most traditional media outlets have blogs which are a second platform for the journalists. If that journalist tried to work without social media, or without the Internet as a whole, they’d be far less able to do their work – and they’d probably be thought crazy. Similarly, if a researcher tried to argue that they were going to use a fraction of the potential processing power of a computer to do their data analysis, in an attempt to remain authentic, they’d be laughed at.

So why do we still insist on research findings having to come from one person instead of from the collective intelligence of many working together? Why can we accept strength in numbers in every way except creative thought? In this age of online information, knowledge remains currency to an anachronistic degree. What should be the currency of our research – especially important medical research? I’d argue that it should be curation and moderation: asking the right questions, getting brilliant minds to work together on it, and moving the discussion along.

But, as Neilsen points out, this goes against the grain. People are rewarded for publishing, not for gathering minds. So how can we change the status quo? As he says, the best way to do so is to acknowledge and promote open-science projects.

I’ll go further. We work for, and with, some of the largest companies in the world. Can we use this power to support wiki projects? Doubtless, the elusive patent will make it unlikely that open medicine will trump profit-seeking anytime soon. But what about the parts of medicine beyond the patent?

Here’s one idea. A pharmaceutical company could sponsor a wiki to improve patient care, with awards going annually to the hospital system who offered the most suggestions, as well as to the system which implemented the most suggestions to the greatest degree of improvement.

How can you become a champion for open medicine?

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?