Healthmap is a perfect example of what technology can do to advance healthcare information. It aggregates online media reports to enable infectious disease intelligence on a global level. Its a near real-time internet-based infectious disease surveillance that is free from political and geographical restraints. Healthmap extracts real-time information from more than 10,000 sites every hour and...
Physician Connect is a new community area on Medscape that allows physicians to securely engage online with other physicians in discussions on clinical as well as non-clinical topics that are relevant to the practice of medicine. The site was launched early this year, and is claimed to have gathered 20,000 registrants since (according to their Q1 FY08 Earnings Call Transcript). I guess that is...
PatientsLikeMe is a social networking site that enables patients to share information around disease conditions. It was started in 2004 by concerned family members of an individual with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Users can register for free and interact around eleven conditions: ALS/Motor Neuron Disease, Anxiety, Bipolar, Depression, HIV/AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis, OCD, Parkinson's disease, PLS,...
Sermo is a free online community restricted to verified US physicians. It was founded in 2006 by Daniel Palestrant. Although its not the only one in this niche, Sermo has managed to get plenty of press and continuous funding ($3m in 2006, followed by $9.5m and $26.7m in 2007). So what is special about Sermo? For one, it has been forming all the right partnerships. Take its alliance with the...