John Sharp is an IT Manager for a major medical center in Northeast Ohio. Areas of expertise include: ehealth, personal health records, Web 2.0 technologies, social media and project management. He is active in the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society and the American Medical Informatics Association. The opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author.
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Medicine 2.0/Health 2.0/eHealth – A terminology evolution
August 22, 2008
In a new article in the Journal of Medical Internet Research titled “Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0: Tensions and Controversies in the Field“, the European authors compare how these terms are used in the literature. While Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0 have many similarities, they differ from the older term eHealth in their additional emphasis on social networking among patients and providers. Personalized Medicine is just beginning to enter this mix of definitions.
In my own thinking, Medicine 2.0 should focus more on the use of Web 2.0 in the practice of medicine while Health 2.0 should describe more patient-centric applications. I agree with the authors that more clarity in the use of these terms will be helpful in the promotion of these essential tools.
As a side note, many of my favorite blogs are cited in the article and a presentation I made on Web 2.0 in Health Care is reference #27 thanks to the Clinical Case and Images blog.
