Re: semantic web and consumer-driven healthcare movement

Hi AJ,

   Good to hear of your voice.  I agree with you. We do need to
consider about how to deliver the value to consumer, for which we may
need to integrate more personalized medical resources, and develop
rich user interfaces for consumer to interact with semantic data.
    This also raises up an important issue that the group has not
considered yet : data privacy.  Consumer is sensitive to their private
data, but also would like to integrate their own data with outside
data to explore potential value. We require a more flexible sharing
framework for developing the web of data.
   Just my 2 cents. Thanks.

Cheers, Huajun

On 5/25/08, AJ Chen <canovaj@gmail.com> wrote:
> On www2008 and this week's semtech2008, I had chance talking with several
> people in this group about consumer side of the healthcare. The reason I'm
> thinking and talking about consumer health is because this area is less
> covered in HCLS group's activities. According to Eric and Ivan from w3c, the
> next healthcare charter is being formed. I thought it would be good to bring
> this up here and see if there are more people interested in exploring the
> relationship between consumer health information and semantic web. If you
> think tackling consumer health by w3c healthcare group will be helpful to
> you or your work, please let the group know by responding to this email.
>
> Background: Most of you may have heard of "consumer-driven healthcare" or
> "papient health record" in news from US government and industry recently.
> The voice  for helping consumers to become more involved in their healthcare
> decision is getting stronger and stronger. If you go to HHS, FDA, CDC, NIH,
> NLM websites, you will find plenty of government initiatives that are aiming
> to improve consumer health by giving consumers more needed information and
> making patient records shared easier. Some highly visible initiatives have
> been also coming out of google, microsoft, and revolution health (AOL
> founder Steve Case's company) recently. I was absolutely amazed when I heard
> a presentation on microsoft's futuristic version of how patient will
> interact with all the different players in the healthcare chain. I'm not
> sure whether and when this vision can realized. But, what's clear is that
> the consumers demand more and the industry should provide the technologies
> to help it.
>
> Personally, I'm working for a healthcare search engine company
> (healthline.com). My understanding of the current movement of
> consumer-driven healthcare system is not just about patient health record.
> In general, the movement is about giving consumers more power in managing
> their health. This may mean  many things: Patient health records are
> available anywhere/anytime (with proper security). Patient can easily find
> all needed information (diseases, symptoms, treatments, drugs, diagnostics,
> prevention, etc) online at hospital's, clinic and insurance company's web
> sites. Online tools that enable personalized medicine directly benefiting
> consumers. I also imagine there will be new approaches emerging, which we
> have not thought of before.
>
> Given this exciting environment, I think the consumer health information
> area is a huge playing field for semantic web. What do you think?
>
> Best,
> AJ
> --
> AJ Chen, PhD
> Co-Chair, Semantic Web SIG, sdforum.org
> Technical Architect, healthline.com
> http://web2express.org
> Palo Alto, CA

Received on Sunday, 25 May 2008 07:13:50 UTC