Yesterday I posted this blogposting, in co-creation with Lodewijk Bos, on the ICMCC-site.

The term health2.0 is around for two years. Years ago, when I started with the combination of Internet and healthcare, there was no term. So, when health2.0 was launched, I’ve embraced it. Not so much as a solution, but mainly because it is a recognizable term in the market. And once there is a new term in the market, people start searching for a definition. This is a tricky search. On the health2.0-wiki are several definitions. Some definitions focus on a collection of digital applications, others see it as a new conceptual thinking.

 Conceptual thinking

 Personally, I consider the conceptual definition the most interesting. Scott Shreeve sets on health2.0:

 New concept of health care wherein all the constituents (patients, physicians, providers, and Payer) focus on health care value (outcomes / price) and use competition at the medical condition level over the full cycle of care as the catalyst for improving the safety , Efficiency, and quality of health care.

He sees health2.0 not as a technological development.  He puts it in a social and business perspective.  Also Jane Sarasohn-Kahn offers room for a social perspective when she says health2.0 is changing the relations between stakeholders in healthcare.

Health2.0 as content and community

Maarten den Braber and Jennifer McCabeGorman use a narrower focus when they define health2.0 as the combination of content and community. In their opinion most current health2.0-applications are built around the cooperation between patients and the sharing of information. This is only the start. In a good paper they give next steps towards health3.0 en health4.0.

 Active and responsible care co-partner

 Lodewijk Bos of ICMCC (the international council on medical care & compunetics) combines the presence and sharing of online information especially with the possibility that patients will be active involved in the care process:

Health 2.0 defines the combination of health data and health information with (patient) experience through the use of ICT, enabling the citizen to become an active and responsible partner in his own health and care pathway.

 The partnership is an important starting point for thinking about health2.0.

Characteristics of health2.0

Although there are more definitions than mentioned here, they seem to share common  characteristics of health2.0.  Based on the information of the health2.0 organization, we can describe health2.0 with the following characteristics:

• a new way of connectivity between patients, and patients with their care provider;
• the sharing and transparency of information about care, health and providers, and the support in choice;
• the self-management and access to health information of individual patients;
• interoperability of health information, which benefits the sharing and access to this information;
• the empowerment of the patient through widespread and richness of information;
• the open conversation about and innovation of health care through consultation of all stakeholders;
• the application of a new business model based on multiple value creation;
• the growing role and importance of info-mediators, who enable the conversation between patient and caregiver, at the same time contributing to it.

 The emphasis on and the transformation of the conversation between all care stakeholders are typical for health2.0.  As Jacqueline Fackeldey puts it , this shows the human behind the patient.

Health2.0 is therefore often mentioned as related to the real step toward patient-centered care.

No definition, but vision

In my view, and maybe this sounds strange after many words on defining health2.0, the search for a definition is unnecessarily.  The quest seems especially motivated by the market itself.  They need a label.  Health2.0 as a definition risks to become a silo of concepts like ‘demanded care’, ‘user centered’ and ‘dual management’. I think this is not the goal and wish of the health2.0-thinkers.  Health2.0 doesn’t need a comprehensive definition:

 Health2.0 is a vision.

It is a vision on care and cure by people (patients, caregivers, volunteers, etc.).  It’s a vision on issues about networking and co-creation. A difficult vision because you can’t get a real grip on it. It’s not about top-down directing, but about bottom-up facilitating. So this vision, this view, is supported by the above mentioned  characteristics. From this vision, you and I can work (innovation, change, etc.: better care).

Opportunities for this vision

With a vision and with the energy to work on it, we must also define the elements on which health2.0 can make positive changes. In a reaction to a posting of Fard Johnmar, Vijay Goel, M.D. describes five elements. Well, I think there are seven:

•        Consumer / Patient decisions, through decision support and information/metrics

•        Provider decisions, through sharing information and qualitative & quantitative decision support tools

•        Care coordination, between patient, caregivers and the persons next to the patient

•        Therapeutic advances in bringing technology into the care process

•        Finance of care and cure

•        Communication and marketing towards and with the stakeholders

•        Structure and managing the organization

The first six opportunities are well known.  The last opportunity is the difficult one. This means a change of the present healthcare providing organizations. Many health2.0 applications and  organizations are new. It’s the entrepreneur who is embracing health2.0. However, healthcare isn’t just about entrepreneurs and creating new business. It’s also about taking the characteristics the ‘old and longstanding’ providers. Health2.0 provides them changes their paradigm, act more like a starfish (instead of staying a spider) and choose for ideas such as:

• strategy through open conversation;
• search, define and facilitate the networks in your organization, not the hierarchical structure of doctors, departments and  divisions;
• stimulate open innovation and online peer-to-peer review of medical information and research;
• find and stimulate the ‘value’ that really drives your employees and your stakeholders;
• change to a value added business model based on the elements of wikinomics, long tail and other 2.0-ideas

Vision needs an open mind for change

When we use the characteristics of health2.0 and release them on the elements of a healthcare organization, there is still one thing needed: an open mind for the change of your paradigm. Despite of all conferences (with many entrepreneurs and a few patients), despite of all blog postings, it’s time to penetrate this health2.0-paradigm deep into the ‘old and longstanding’ healthcare organizations. I think that’s the 2009-goal for us health2.0-thinkers.

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