Re: semantic web and user-driven healthcare movement

Thanks AJ and Emmanuelle,

I would prefer the term 'user driven health care' where both patient and
health professional users of background and foreground health information
form a collaborative healing network (along with other stakeholders and
actors) toward achieving the best possible outcomes for a given individual
case at hand.

One of the important contributions of user driven health care is that it
moves beyond the disease focused paternalistic approach of traditional
medicine and other than helping to bring all individual players in health
care under one umbrella it looks at mutiple possible dimensions affecting a
patient (of which aggregated statistical evidence is just one part) that may
have a bearing on his/her disease.

It utilises a recent but tested tool in clinical problem solving, that of
case based reasoning:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=544898

I agree these are exciting times. At the moment more than automated
information (that is the promise of the semantic web) we need to explore and
develop newer synthesis in human learning approaches to healthcare.

I can share some material in press on 'user driven health care' and our
initial efforts with Intel Malaysia in that direction with those of you who
would wish to know more.

rakesh


Rakesh Biswas MD
Professor,
Department of Medicine,
People's college of medical sciences,
Bhanpur, Bypass road,
Bhopal-462010 (M.P.) India


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