Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival

Medicine is an ever-changing field and this is one sector which depends heavily on information access. But, unfortunately, suffers from Information Access Syndrome. We cannot access information about the health of a patient at the same speed as we could retrieve information about weather report or travel information.

Web technology has been growing rapidly in the past couple of years. The growth of blogs and other sharing environment has triggered an entirely new level of information acquisition. This is commonly known as the Web 2.0 platform, although many considered it as a Hype. But, today it has entered onto mainstream lexicon.

Medicine 2.0 is an upgrade from the older generation of medicine to the new generation of medicine. Bertalan Meskó has worked tirelessly spending many sleepless nights in Hungary promoting Medicine 2.0 concept by actively promoting Medicine 2.0 blog carnival.

Medicine 2.0 has also entered as a regularly used terminology by media with the recent article titled Docs try Med 2.0, but still, there is a lot of confusion between medicine 2.0 and health 2.0 terms, although they both are similar in objectives, there is difference between them. Dr Jay Parkinson is one of the examples of Medicine 2.0 movement in real life.

Medical 2.0 is a new directory which lists all the important elements of Medicine 2.0 movement.
Medicine 2.0 will play an important role in the future of medicine. At the recently concluded HIMSS virtual conference Dr.Cleveland Clinic CIO C. Martin Harris, MD, lead a discussion on e-Enabled medical practices and how future physicians need to be ready to embrace change.

Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival

He told that healthcare has “lagged behind” other industries in implementing technology that allows consumers to get more involved in their care.


On management of Personal Health Record:This is the short synopsis of the interview.

HIMSS: What advice would you give organizations who want to achieve a PHR like MyChart?

Dr Harris:First, I strongly favor the use of an integrated PHR as opposed to a stand alone PHR where the patient is left to become their own medical librarian. If an organization has an integrated PHR like Cleveland Clinic’s MyChart system, information collection is done by physician as part of caring for patients. By having an integrated PHR, our patients using MyChart have instant access to their own medical information, such as their medications, their lab results, and the important, time-sensitive health alerts they need to receive.

For example, recently the FDA issued a warning for the diabetes medication Avandia. This drug was not recalled but the FDA suggested every Avandia user have a conversation with their physician. With our integrated PHR, we were able to identify the 9,540 Cleveland Clinic patients using the medication within an hour of the announcement; 747 of those patients were MyChart users, and they were immediately notified electronically.

HIMSS: During your keynote presentation, Personal Health Record, at HIMSS Summit 07, what do you want attendees to take away from your presentation?

Dr. Harris: First, PHR tools are no longer ancillary; they are an integral part of the practice and delivery of high-quality medical services.

Second, these tools empower patients to become active participants in their healthcare decisions. Through customized health information available in the PHR, patients are able to better educate and prepare themselves prior to their appointment, allowing them to make the most of the time they spend with their physician.


And finally, these tools will fundamentally transform the way we currently think about the delivery of health care services, and how patients will request and receive those services in the future.


Medicine 2.0 is not about abandoning the old generation of medicine practised since ages, but embracing the new wave of future with the application of technologies to medicine.


Medicine 2.0 blog carnival which collects some of the most interesting posts about Web 2.0 and Medicine. A medicine 2.0 blog carnival is a blog event that can be likened to as a magazine dedicated to particular health and medical blogs. Each event of the medicine 2.0 blog carnival lists blog article that contains links to other blog articles on a health and medicine.

About the author

Author profile

Nwasom is a pharmacy graduate and a pharmacist currently practising in the United Kingdom. I have great experience communicating with patients and their family as gained through working as a pharmacist in both the hospital and community pharmacy sector. I love writing so it was a natural thing to try and pass medical and health information on through writing.