Spend any length of time around health care related websites and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Words like “Web 2.0”, “Health 2.0” and “Medicine 2.0” are catch phrases being tossed around like socks in a dryer. It’s officially a phase 5/6 pandemic. Here’s a little background to get you started.
“Web 2.0” gives reference to a second generation of web development and design for secure information sharing and interoperability based on communication and collaboration on the internet. Mostly it refers to the new explosion of web-based communities, social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and an endless list of blogs.
“Health 2.0” refers to the potential uses for Web 2.o in health care. Simply put, it defines the use of the internet to link all phases of health care from the user to the provider. Tools for Health 2.0 include telemedicine, electronic medical records (EMR) and blogs where patients and health care professionals can share information.
“Medicine 2.0” is very similar to Health 2.0. As with Health 2.0, Medicine 2.0 utilizes web-based communities, social networking and personal electronic medical records (PEMR) via “the web” to connect patients, health care professionals and researchers. The main difference in my opinion, is the broad adoption or PEMRs like Google Health and Microsoft Health Vault by Medicine 2.0 where Health 2.0 appears to rely more on social networking to connect patients with their providers. This, of course, is only my perceived difference.
More information on Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0 can be found at The Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR). JMIR publishes a Medicine 2.0 theme issue and co-sponsors a Medicine 2.0 conference.
Not to be out done, I have decided that pharmacists need their own “2.0” designation. Therefore, I bring you Pharmacy 2.0. Apparently I’m not the only one thinking along these lines as there is already a Pharmacy 2.0 website. Unfortunately it’s just a shell. The creator of that website needs to wake up and start promoting our newly discovered buzz word. To get the ball rolling, I have developed a working definition for Pharmacy 2.o. How about “the pharmaceutical care characterized by the ability to rapidly share, classify and summarize pertinent therapeutic health information while integrating new technolgies with the goals of improving health care systems and reducing adverse drug events of patients and healthcare providers”. Hmmmm, needs a little work. I’ll see what I can do.
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