Health 2.0

There are a bunch of excellent sites now catering to the health and medical industry. Many of them include big players such as Microsoft and Google. We’re not just talking about the traditional WebMD type of service either. This new breed of health service has incorporated many of the cool and useful social media tools we’ve come to expect from web 2.0 startups and social networks. Here’s a roundup of some of the best.

It Runs in the Family is an interesting service that has great potential. It works like a family tree maker but instead of just tracking birthdates and biographies, it helps you build a database of your entire family’s health history which could be life saving. You start with yourself and add any illnesses you have or had and then add other family members and their health history. Here’s a demo.

iMedix is an award winning social network that focuses on health and illness. I’ve covered it in depth before in Imedix is a social network for Patients but it continues to grow and improve with time. The good thing about this service is that it’s not just for people who have particular illnesses or diseases but also for their loved ones who want to learn more about the subject matter or just need support. Check it out and see for yourself.

GoogleHealth is an impressive service from the monolithic search company which obviously does an excellent job when it comes to finding health information. What I like about this service is the way that it stores this data in a secure environment for you and your family. You fill out health profiles for you and each family member and enter any medication you take which is critical because it will notify you of any known problems with mixing any of those medications. You can also import your detailed medical records and find doctors in your area.

Microsoft HealthVault is very similar to GoogleHealth and offers many of the same tools and features such as tracking every family member’s health history, medication, illnesses, doctors, etc. Obviously, both Google and Microsoft understand the importance of making all of this information as secure and private as possible. They are competing diligently to become the standard platform for families and medical professionals and institutions for health and medical history management.

Here’s a quick video

TweetGrid is not really a health service but you can use it to search and filter information from the well-known micro-blogging community known as Twitter.com. There are many different configurations so you can customize the layout any way you want it. For example, here’s a setup where I’ve asked TweetGrid to display any messages with the following six terms which could be used for A.D.D or A.D.H.D.

Everything is in real-time which is very useful. You can click on anyone’s name and select to follow them if you want. You can also save any searches you’ve setup as a bookmark for checking again any time you want. You can also create a short URL and share your search with others on Twitter or in email. Tip: Create a customized name for your searches on Bit.ly which will save all of your links there. You can also save them to your Delicious account online.

Final Diagnosis?

The prognosis is excellent for health and medical services online. It makes a great deal of sense to use technology to help us learn about our health and illnesses and more importantly to concur disease. At the very least, it’s a good way to meet other people dealing with the same issues we’re dealing with on our own. That alone makes these types of services worth having around.