On May 2, Ted Eytan, Medical Director of Health Informatics and Web Services and at a sabbatical at the PCHIT, published a definition of Health 2.0, saying that it is “the transition to personal, participatory health care“.
Maybe you hadn’t noticed, but, like with Web 2.0, there is no real definition yet. A discussion started, at his bog page, but also on 2 other locations, at e-patients.net and at another page on Ted’s blog.
I reacted also, on the original page: “I might understand the use of the word “transition”, as participatory healthcare is much more than being able to see what the medics do. However, what I miss is the fact that participatory means that the patient will have to assume his own responsibility and that the system will have to accept this paradigm shift.”
I looked at all the other reactions, and found a beautiful reaction from Jen McCabe Gorman, however not dealing with the definition of Health 2.0, but giving a very nice impression of where we are going. Which fits in nicely with Ted’s transitional view of health 2.0. Reading all the reactions and working on a paper on patient empowerment, I came to the conclusion, that I have to state my view more accurate, that I do understand that Ted uses the word “transition” but that I do not agree.
And then Ted gave his reaction, ending with: “See what you think and please suggest an improvement to the definition based on your thinking!”
Almost simultaneously at the e-patient.net page e-patient Dave reacted to my use of the word responsibility, in a very nice way.
So I decided to accept Ted’s invitation to come up with an improvement of the definition. In my view:
Health 2.0 defines the combination of health data and health information with (patient) experience through the use of ICT, enabling the citizen to become an active and responsible partner in his own health and care pathway.
I hope to be able to describe in my patient empowerment article to show that Health 2.0 is not just a transition.
Lodewijk Bos
See also: “Patient 2.0 Empowerment“.
I would just add a couple of adjectives to this very good definition:
“Health 2.0 defines the combination of health data and health information with (patient) experience, enabling the citizen to become an INFORMED, active, responsible AND EQUAL partner in his/her own health and care pathway.”
Patients cannot be active and responsible if they are not informed. They cannot be responsible in their own health if they are not at the same time and BY DEFINITION equal. That is really the paradigm shift we are promoting when we talk of participatory medicine.
Thank you for the input. The problem with definitions is that they have to be “short” and as much inclusive as possible. Health information in my view includes both aspects, both patient and general information.
In my view, the word partner indicates a certain level of equal. But the concept of equal is in this concept kind of problematic, as the clinician will very often have more information and experience that will have a bigger impact on care pathway decisions.
This is a very interesting insight. I think that there are many people who are getting confused with the definition of words; but with the empowerment of the patients on definitions, then it would be of better help.