I just discovered the blog e-patient which includes an impressive list of contributors - Gilles Frydman of ACOR.org, the cancer support site, Susannah Fox from pewinternet.org, and others. Gilles writes in a recent post, "A Cautionary Tale about Wikis." He cites the article in Scientific American on "Science 2.0: Great New Tool, or Great Risk? -- more on that later, and beta version of Elsevier offering Wiserwiki. While applauding their efforts, he also raises some concerns: that they should address in order to be successful:

• a better understanding of the motivations of healthcare professionals to give their time (the commodity they lack most)
  
• the creation of editorial policies specific to this new publishing paradigm
  
• many other management issues that will appear over time.

One other note is the issue of Wikispam which this open format can make itself vulnerable to.

In addition, check out the white paper on "e-Patients: How They Can Help Us Heal Healthcare" available as a free pdf or as a wiki.

Techorati: Health 2.0