A Shift in the Power Dynamic: Health 2.0

Posted October 22, 2008 by Lygeia Ricciardi 

I’m writing from the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco. What is Health 2.0? It’s a grassroots push through which patients are using social networks and other tools to generate their own health data and transform their role vis a vis the healthcare system. Quite honestly, everyone is still trying to figure out exactly what Health 2.0 is. One analogy is to Web 2.0 a more interactive, collaborative, multimedia approach to the Internet than its first iteration. One thing is clear: with Health 2.0 a shift in the traditional power dynamic in healthcare is moving in favor of patients.

This conference is notable in part because of its popularity. There are 1000 people here. The first Health 2.0 conference was held last fall with about half as many participants. It’s also on the West Coast. Being Washington DC-based, most of the health IT conferences I attend in my part of the country have a different vibe. With the exception, of course, of Project HealthDesign’s Expo last September (which was in Washington DC), most of them seem to be about tweaking technology and policy toward including patients more, not truly putting patients at the “center” of the health system. Maybe it’s the California Myth (and particularly, the proximity to Silicon Valley), but I feel like there’s more openness to change here. A sense that change really is happening, regardless of what we do—but that we can help to accelerate it. More later…