Health 2.0: patients-led research

Patientslikeme is a social network of patients created a couple of years ago. The patients shared their experiences with the disease to other patients. Health professionals can also participate. Now there are active communities on neuromuscular disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Parkinson's, fibromyalgia, mútliple sclerosis, diseases associated with mood (anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder ...) and AIDS. At present, more than 23,000 patients share their data.
At the end of 2007, there were some data that suggested that lithium could slow the progression of the evolution of the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Fornai published a paper in this topic in February 2008). From these data and using the platform Patientslikeme, Karen Felzer (a californian researcher in seismology and daughter of a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and Humberto Macedo (affected amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, from Brasil) launch a study to see the effect of lithium in a broad group patients. This is an inquiry without "professional researchers". A research study organized by the patients themselves. In a short periode of time they recruited more than 200 participants, which folow-up for six months. In November 2008 published the results showing that lithium has no effect on the evolution of the disease. Patients have done a quick and transparent study.
This new model of patients-as-partners is a key element of Health 2.0

Medting

Medting is an internet social community tailored for clinicians to share their clinical cases and browse a disease atlas. Equipped with medical image software and videos, doctors may ask for second opinions, share cases or stock private ones for self-learning. All visual information may be shared embedded too. This is just an example:


Integration with PubMed for citation searching and a tagging system based on SNOMED CT allow users to collaborate and discover sound information.
It is surprising that such a venture is supported by a business model completely free for end-users (doctors), even if they are premium users. Advertisement in weekly email reports and a licensing system for organizations are the only two revenue streams.

doc2doc: connecting doctors worldwide

The British Medical Journal Group has recently launched a new initiative on the web 2.0 wave. doc2doc is an online community addressed to doctors worldwide although it is open to other health professionals. Forums and blogs are the first hosted features.
Scientific journals have increasingly adopted 2.0 gadgets into their sites such as RSS feeds, social bookmarkers and tags. Scientists, researchers and practitioners, as the main producers and consumers of scientific publications, may take advantage of 2.0-like communities to:
- Connect with peers
- Share knowledge and discovery
- Organise professional and research projects