Third healthcare revolution

Sir Muir Gray foreword Web 2.0 in the Health Sector, a industry review with UK perspective (by Lindsey Birnsteel from E-Health Insider). Comparing industrial revolutions (we are in the 3rd one according to Manuel Castells) and healthcare revolutions (we are too in our third according to Sir Muir Gray), there are some unsolved problems that e-health (symbol of the new revolution) might contribute to address:
• errors;
• poor quality care delivery;
• poor experience of patients;
• waste;
• unknowing variations in policy and practice;
• failure to introduce high value interventions;
• uncritical adoption of low value interventions;
and
• failure to recognize uncertainty and ignorance.

An executive summary of Birnsteel report is accessible here, though the full report requires order.

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