Diabetes Mine - the all things diabetes blog

Did I Say Four?

Apparently I have been spreading a rumor that this blog has been in existence for four years.  Actually, it dawned on me in the bathtub the other night that having launched in February 2005, last month would have marked the third anniversary of DiabetesMine.com.  It just seems longer, I suppose, since I got the 'betes four and a half years ago (yes, that one I'm sure of).

This little mixup kind of reminds me of the time I moped around for months before my 39th birthday lamenting how old I was getting -- until my husband reminded me that according to my birth date, I was actually only turning 38 that year.  Speaks volumes for my prowess with numbers, ay?  And what an asset that is for insulin dosing and general diabetes management.  NOT!

Anyhoo, the point is, I realized I've got a good solid three years of this writing-about-everything-D gig under my belt.  Today seems like a nice day for reflection on a few random Great Moments in Diabetes Blogging:

Early on:

Coming out of the closet.

My first endo looked up my blog and later told me what I was doing was "cute."  Haven't seen that man in years.

Free gifts with diabetes: I post about related conditions, like Raynaud's syndrome, and discover that I am very much not alone.

First times for everything:

Liveblogging at the ADA Conference, peeing in a jug (microalbumin test), fessing up to what scares me the most. 

Gaining momentum:

Readers start to fess up, too -- fear and loathing in NYC.

The OC explodes.

Sharing becomes finger-lickin' good. One of my personal favorites (posts and behaviors).

January 2007: 63 people "de-lurk" right here just because I asked them to -- because it was "National De-lurking Day."  (I think I need to declare another one of those real soon.)

Feb 2007: I start the pump.  Life with diabetes gets a whole lot better.

Parental anxiety. Does my youngest daughter have a lifelong condition, too?  Today I happily to report that her tests came back negative and her symptoms have all but disappeared( !)

In the funnies.  That very-same five-year-old had a look at this work and said, "Mom, is that you in Cartoon World?  That's bad!"  Good thing she's so darn cute.

Doing food.  Late-breaking addition.  Time to talk about what we eat.  Anything you want to discuss?

Please don't be shy.  No judgments here.  Come as you are.  Speak your mind.  Just like I always do -- and have been for four several years now  :)

Jumping in with Both Feet

A little sneak-preview today of something I'm very excited about: for quite a while now, I've obviously been following all sorts of interactive "Health 2.0" sites for people with diabetes.  On top of that, I've been mulling over how to build out my setup here at DiabetesMine.com to allow for more community conversation.  Another message board or chat forum just didn't seem to be the answer.

Today I happily announce a partnership with a brand new group on the block, Alliance Health.  These good folks, based in Salt Lake City, UT, have engaged me to help them create a new kind of online community for people with diabetes, which we're calling Diabetic Connect. 

Shhh, the site is still in private beta testing mode -- but I can tell you that the Alliance team is committed to providing the kind of stuff that we, the PWD community, really want and need.  One major reason I chose to partner with them is that they're listening.  So far, cool features on the docket include a Book Club, an area to search and sign up for clinical trials, and spots for clear and easy sharing of videos, product reviews, recipes and more.  If you'd like to be included as a beta tester, please sign up HERE.  The company will be adding new beta users gradually over the next couple of weeks.  I'll be beta testing myself as well during this period. We'd love your feedback to make this site as valuable as possible!

I imagine you have lots of questions, so here's a quick FAQ:

* When will the site go live for everybody?

In a few weeks. I promise to make a big announcement. Stay tuned.

* Will this relationship change DiabetesMine at all?

From a content perspective, not at all.  I'll just keep doing my own thing.  The sites will just be cross-linked.  We do hope to port this blog over to Wordpress soon, however, which will hopefully make it much more easily searchable, with different tabbed pages for each category of content.  (You know, like over at In Search of Balance and Health's Poked and Prodded).  We'll also be adding a "Marketplace" tab which will feature little ads from hand-picked providers who offer high-quality products to this community.  That page will look sort of like a Classified Ads section.

* Who the heck is Alliance Health again?

Alliance is a healthcare marketing group founded in 2002.  (You will notice that their home website is very marketing-oriented.)  A big part of their original mission was to develop a new model of online advertising that was more targeted and consumer-friendly, i.e. a "pull" model that allowed readers to opt in to ads that interested them rather than the traditional "push" model of banners that pop up everywhere.  This is an important point, because now that the company is turning its attention to building online "homes" for people with specific diseases and conditions, they know how to monetize the sites without bombarding readers with a bunch of unwanted ads.  All advertising on Diabetic Connect will appear on separate pages, and it will be entirely up to the reader/visitor to "click in" to those tabs if and when they're actually interested in the offers.

* Do these guys really care about people with diabetes?

Integrity is my No. 1 priority, so I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe the project had our best interests at heart.  As far as the people behind Alliance go, the director of online content has a teenage son living with Type 1 diabetes, and one of the developers (ironically) was diagnosed just a few days ago.  As noted, I've spent a great deal of time talking with the team about what the PWD community might really want and need, and they've been very responsive.  As an example, they've built a very prominent widget into the sidebar of the new site that asks for your feedback, i.e. "What is this community missing?"  They really hope to do it right, and that includes a giving component: I've suggested a combination of donating funds towards research and donating supplies to some D-communities in need.  More on all this TBA (to be announced) very soon. 

 

Spring View of Health 2.0, with a Diabetes Twist

It’s a moving target, of course. The whole concept of “Health 2.0” is still being defined, refined, created and recreated. And it was fascinating to be at the epicenter of this creative quake this week in San Diego, at the H2.0 “Spring Fling” event that brought some of the brightest physicians, web developers, entrepreneurs, healthcare consultants and “ePatients” together in one room.

More Patient Community Sites

As you may have noticed, the concept of building ready-made patient communities is on fire as an array of new start-ups enter the market. (See my original list from the September H2.0 conference.) Among the new players unveiled on Tuesday were: WEGO Health, a new "purpose-driven community" site that engages highly informed patients to vet out top 15 sources on a variety of ailments, and Trusera, a community site focusing on “the power of story-telling” among patients.

There are also a lot of new players in the find-a-doctor-online search arena. I’ve previously introduced Xoova and Vitals here. Xoova’s newest value-add is the ability to actually use the site to schedule appointments with the doctors you find on their site. Vitals allows you to peruse doctors by specific parameters, such as language skills and gender, etc.

Joining them are:

• Healthcare.com, which combines provider search with health information search
• HealthGrades, which lets people rate their experience with individual MDs by actually giving them a grade, and
• Carol, a flashy-looking new online marketplace for health services, where you can actually purchase services like physical exams and medical procedures

Also of note is Health Central Network's newly launched community site for teens with diabetes, called DiabeTeens. This one is hosted by 23-year-old "happy diabetic" Ginger Vieira, who advises PWD college students on everything from diabulimia to adhesives.

I think all of these companies offer interesting and relevant features, but time will tell whether we, the patients, will equally flock to them all. I think it’s pretty clear that the concept of patient communities and online health services is here to stay –- using them will soon be as common as using your email and therefore nothing revolutionary –- but we’ll see many companies come and go over time.

MDs Going Online

We also heard from several MDs who have incorporated the internet into their day-to-day work. So far nothing diabetes-specific, but interesting nonetheless. For some examples, check out San Francisco On Call, MyCA and Dr. Jay Parkinson, who's doing some amazing things with online tools and home-based patient visits in Booklyn, NY.

None of these offerings are tailored to diabetes needs yet, but what these guys are doing could be easily extended to endocrinology once it catches on.  The efforts of these pioneering doctors are being complemented by technology from start-ups that simplify and improve patients’ interactions via technology:

• VisionTree Optimal Care, which collects patient information and delivers it to healthcare professionals
• American Well, which enables video chat sessions between patients and health care professionals
• Live Wisdom, from Organized Wisdom, which allows you to chat with doctors and other healthcare professionals to get your questions answered and advice on many topics for an average of about $1.99/minute. Would you use this?  Conference attendees joked that it sounded a bit like internet porn (talk to a live nude for just $XX/minute! -– which is better for your health, anyway?)

These and all other companies at the event certainly showed many cool features, but I doubt that many of them will actually be used by "sick" people like us.  At the moment, it’s almost a tool-and-information overload.  But as one panelist noted, all progress it good: bring it on.  These tools will live and die by the preferences of the patient community.

Being a Diabetes Company

Finally, the really cool part: Imagine gathering about 350 of the smartest, most plugged-in minds in health and technology, and putting them to the task of brainstorming better diabetes care. Well, not care exactly, but they were tasked with identifying three top problems/unmet needs of people living with Type 1 diabetes and then recommending some new kind of tool or service to fix it.

IDEO, the internationally-know industrial design firm that revamped Kaiser, conducted this fun open-workshop session during lunch. Instead of presenting a typical luncheon keynote, the IDEO folks made everybody work: each of the roughly 50 tables was given the assignment of pretending to be a diabetes-focused Health 2.0 company, and each group had 30 minutes to discuss and develop a concept to solve some problems we face in everyday life.

First they aired a quick video of four patients (including myself and Manny) talking about what’s hard about diabetes.  Um, what isn’t? Which is why this was a near-impossible task, with so little information to go on. They saw an insulin pump briefly in the video, for example, but didn’t get the details on the insulin reserviore vs. controller unit, or how an infusion site sticks to your body or for how long.  Nevertheless, these sharp minds did pretty well grasping some of our most pressing issues in just half-an-hour, I’d say. See them here at work:

They certainly “got it”:

This group swore they hadn't heard know about the Charmr, but just came up with this concept on their own:

Some of the other ideas that emerged were:

• a Buddy System for the newly diagnosed
• an insulin “patch” that changes color when it’s running low on contents
• a skin tattoo that glows when your BG is going too low or too high
• a Zazzle-like site where patients could design their own fun and colorful pump skins
• and my personal (most outlandish) favorite – the idea for a Bare Necessities-style body pump, which is made of gel and can be worn adhered to your belly or even as a "form bra" patch for the ladies, as you choose (!)

Mostly pipe dreams?  Yes, at the moment, of course. But that’s the power of Health 2.0. Dream big. There’s plenty of evidence that some iteration of all these new ideas and innovations will become reality sooner than you think.

Grace, Achieved

Who knows Birdie?  Who loves her like I do?  Her blog, Aiming for Grace, always offers a combination of the most compelling images and simple words about living with diabetes that stop you in your tracks.  It's the purity of the them that gets you.  For example, this recent post about the compulsion to explain ourselves to perfect strangers.

Well, when Birdie marked 20 years of living with Type 1 diabetes in March 2006, she wanted to commemorate it in some way.  On the flight home from a business trip that year, she began to jot down a list of "20 things I really knew about my life with diabetes." 

"What suddenly occurred to me is that I knew a lot about diabetes and that my experience had its own tone," she writes.

These 20 things, along with Birdie's unique eye for abstract photography, eventually became this lovely little book:

With just a single sentence on each pair of pages, it doesn't say much.  But it speaks to me in ways I can't describe.

Even though we still don't have a clue as to Birdie's true identity, I think you'll agree that her blog posts and this little book make you feel a strong and tangible connection to a kindred spirit striving to live the PWD life with dignity and grace.

 

[Self-published, available for purchase off Birdie's site for the non-too-economical price of $25.95 for the paperback version.  An investment?  Or a touching gift?]

Health 2.0 Made Easy (And What Matters)

While I am busy at the Health 2.0 conference in San Diego today -- moderating and learning as much as I can about what the future of healthcare might bring --  I have a few related items I wanted to share.

First, in case you're still uncertain about usefulness of Social Networks, or having trouble explaining them to your boss or your Grandma, have a look at this super-easy lesson from the CommonCraft Show:

See some more great videos, including "Blogs in Plain English" HERE.

And perhaps most importantly: see a little reminder HERE that it's not the technology that matters so much, but rather using the technology as a means to better health outcomes. 

Or when "better" is not possible, the technology still provides us as a means to reach out, and chronicle our personal journeys. 

For example, take a moment to reflect on Bay Area patient-blogger Brian Hill, who passed away in early February. For four years, he documented his struggle with "a 100% fatal, presently incurable disorder called A.L.S. (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)."  On his blog, aptly titled Brain Hell, the final post says simply: "ok i'm dead.  so what? i partook of much wonder and beauty. you should be so lucky!" 141 comments and counting.

Clearly his loved ones were grateful for the technology that allowed him to share his experiences with "friends and soul-mates, and complete strangers too."

"I went public because I wanted to be there in case other people diagnosed with ALS searched for a blog about having the disorder," he told the media. "I had searched and found data, but not daily personal accounts. And I had faith that strangers would bring me useful information and support, which they have."

I will have Brian in my heart and mind today as I commune with the business community behind the numerous emerging Health 2.0 enterprises.  My aim is to remind them that what they view as a new business frontier also happens to lie at the heart of people's well-being and their very existence.  This is what makes online patient communities so much more consequential than a simple MySpace or Facebook.  This, I believe, is what really matters.

Health 2.0: The Patient Experience

I'm very excited to report that today myself and a bunch of online health experts convene in San Diego, CA, for the "Spring Fling" version of last Fall's Health 2.0 Conference.  As you can see, the focus of this round is "Connecting Consumers & Providers" with a huge emphasis on the user experience (that's us!!).

Therefore, the organizers have me busy all day long tomorrow.  I'll be running a morning panel on "The User Experience" featuring the following:

* Alice Kreuger, a tech writer from Colorado who's been using social networking sites to help manage the effects of multiple sclerosis.  She's president of Virtual Ability, Inc., a non-profit that operates The Heron Sanctuary, a support community for the disabled in the virtual world of Second Life.

* Matthew Zachary, a concert pianist who recovered from a rare and malignant pediatric brain tumor at the age of 21 which temporarily derailed his music career.  Today he's not only recorded several albums, and played scores of concerts, but he's also created the I'm Too Young For This Foundation, "which is changing the way cancer among young people is understood."

* Ranae Whitmore, who "experienced an epiphany 20 months ago and embarked on a new and enlightened journey of weight loss and self improvement using several Health 2.0 sites including Daily Strength (where's she's known as "Heartgirl")."  She formed friendships to provide motivation and eventually lost 140 pounds. She's now dedicated to helping others along similar journeys.

plus demos from...

the well-established HealthCentral Network, serving 30 different conditions, including diabetes

a new combo health search and community site called WEGO Health

and the brand new patient "story-telling" site Trusera.com.

Then at mid-day I'm supposed to sit on a "Reactor Panel" about patients connecting with healthcare providers.  In other words, what's the patients' experience at the doctor's office?  When I asked how to prepare for this one, the organizers said, "Don't worry. You've been preparing for the last four years, since your diagnosis."  Gotcha.

Finally (and this is really neat!), I'll also sit on the closing panel exploring "The Future User Experience" with the likes of:

* Deputy Editor of Wired magazine Thomas Goetz - an expert on technology and how it relates to health

* Legendary entrepreneur Esther Dyson of EDventure - a board member an investor in many a healthcare and genetics company

* David Kibbe - former director of (and now senior adviser to) the Center for Health Information Technology at the American Academy of Family Physicians.

* Doug Solomon, chief technology strategist at IDEO, the revolutionary design firm that helped "overhaul Kaiser Permanente's patient experience" (see the BusinessWeek cover story HERE)

* Scott Shreeve, MD, of Crossover Healthcare, former founder of MedSphere and Health 2.0 pioneer

And little 'ol me?  Yeah, I wondered too.  But Matthew Holt & team insist that the patient voice is what this whole movement is about.  No sense having a bunch of heavy-hitters on the business and technology side without at least one in-the-trenches user who knows what it's like to be a patient seeking help online.

So there you have it.  All this Health 2.0 buzz comes down to the changing experience of us patient-types with the health and medical system. This whole affair will be videotaped and I'll post the links as soon as possible, of course. 

Stay tuned for H2.0 updates the next few days.

Grand Rounds, Vol. 4, No. 20: The Health 2.0 Explosion

Happy Super Tuesday!  Whether or not you live in one of the 24 states that cast their votes today, you probably agree that healthcare will be one of the major opportunities –- and major challenges -– for the next White House. Now for the first time in history, policy makers are facing a more outspoken, more organized medical and patient constituency than ever, due to the emergence of social media on the Internet, aka Health 2.0.

Welcome to the 4^th volume, 20^th edition of Grand Rounds, the weekly roundup of what’s happening in the health and medical blogosphere.  Since this group essentially resides at the heart of the Health 2.0 movement, today’s review is organized around this very-same theme:

NEW CHANNELS

Canadian Medicine blogs about the rising popularity of doctors-only social networking websites, and that they’re in the process of expanding by opening up their registration policies in 2008 to include Canadians physicians.

                                                                                                Graphic Courtesy of Scott Schreve

The Health Business Blog posts about an online social community that focuses on a sexual health condition for men. David Williams asserts that his post about a community about Peyronie’s disease, aka penile curvature, is “a delicate subject, to say the least.”

The Clinical Cases and Images Blog lists examples of podcasts useful for medical education. The post points to the fact that medical podcasts are becoming more popular as more quality programs are becoming available for free.

The sharp brains over at Sharp Brains have discovered the value of online newsletters vs. paper-based. Viva la Health 2.0!

PROS AND CONS

Fellow D-blogger Scott Strumello is skeptical of the plethora of newly fabricated patient communities on the Web.  Already, he’s introducing the concept of "social networking fatigue."

David Edelman of DiabetesDaily, on the other hand, sees lots of value in “micro-communities” designed to meet "the unique needs of the 1% groups."

While user-generated web content can be a blessing for those seeking quality health information on the Web, Highlight Health 2.0 blogs about a negative example: citing “YouTube as a Source of Health Misinformation.”  Ugh.

On the contrary, Allergy Notes provides examples of videos which in their opinion show that “YouTube can be an excellent free tool for patient education.”  There you have it.

PsychCentral also takes a critical look at basic communication in the age of Health 2.0. They warn: “When you share and disclose aspects of your personal health with the world, it is something very different than when you share and disclose your favorite books or hobbies or musical groups.”

PUSHING TRANSPARENCY

Talk about opening the kimono. David Harlow at HealthBlawg illustrates that in the age of Health 2.0, you can even air the details of policy issues that dig deep into the healthcare bureaucracy.

Over at Donor Cycle, our friendly neighborhood organ transplant coordinator is all about transparency, with a few good stories illustrating that doctors don’t know everything. For example, What’s a Chimera?

NY Emergency Medicine’s Peter Sheehy comments on a New York Times story about the Food and Drug Administration “reversing its decades-long habit of failing to investigate potential psychiatric side effects of medicines.”  Transparency trumps again.

WHY COMMUNITY MATTERS

Laurie Edwards of A Chronic Dose posts a personal perspective on how healthcare technology and Health 2.0 allow her to keep doing what she’s doing, and to connect to other people.

Bongi at Other Things Amanzi illustrates why the blogging community is important. Where else can one get such insight into the psyche of a doctor dealing with terminally ill patients?

Similarly, Susan at Rickety Contrivances shares the difficulties of an ER chaplain witnessing everything from pysch/addictions issues to domestic violence cases.

In a technology funk and frustrated, Kerri Morrone of SixUntilMe turns to the blogosphere for inspiration and advice, tapping the true benefit of healthcare on the Web.

 

SHARING TIPS

On How to Cope With Pain, the blogging doc is telling-all on what doctors really want. She advises on eight ways to be a good patient.

Speaking from personal experience as a mother of chronically ill children, Dayna at Look Through Your Own Eyes writes about the characteristics of a good doctor.

Nurse Terry at Counting Sheep offers five simple rules to optimize your anesthesia experience.

What’s more, Jen McCabe Gorman of the Health Management Rx Blog is sharing some excellent tips on what consumers can do to prevent medication errors.

CALLS-TO-ACTION: IMPROVE HEALTH CARE OUTCOMES!

Dr. Val and The Voice of Reason posts about the shortcomings of our healthcare system. She points out that patients need more continuity in care, in order to have successful therapies.

Evolved and Rational has posted a highly critical analysis of homeopathy from a scientific perspective. Author Nick expresses concern about the popularity of this alternative medicine, saying that “the very basic foundations that homeopathy relies on does not stand up to any scientific scrutiny whatsoever.”

And there’s more bad news for alternative medicine.  Rebuild Your Back posts an article that, according to the author, proves “how we sometimes fool ourselves into believing that something works when it really had nothing to do with [the cure].”

Nancy Brown at Teen Health 411 draws attention to the rising number of HIV-infected seniors and aging baby boomers. She states that the over-50 crowd “never got sexuality education in school and ignores HIV prevention messages.”

InsureBlog's Bob Vineyard comments on a Washington Post story of folks with chronic, expensively treated, and rare diseases, and the challenges they face in obtaining -- and financing -- their health care.

JC at Healthline Connects draws attention to ethical questions related to organ donations and illegal organ trafficking in countries such as India.

And last but certainly not least, Paul Levy at Running a Hospital blogs about a major commitment from the hospital board, administration, and medical staff to set audacious quality, safety, and patient satisfaction standards, and in his words “perhaps most importantly, promising to publish our progress towards those for the entire world to see.”  A great example of both voluntary transparency AND the pursuit of better patient care.

Please join us next week for Grand Rounds hosted at HealthBlawg on Feb. 12, 2008.

A Site for Us D-Gals

Speaking of the myriad new social networking sites popping up for us PWDs -- like 'em or not -- I just discovered a new place for women with diabetes to "get support, get motivated, and get informed," not to mention go shopping.  It's called DiabetesSisters.com, founded by Brandy Barnes of Hickory, North Carolina, a 32-year-old mom who's had Type 1 for 18 years.

In brief, the site offers:

• Blogs from women with Type 1 Diabetes, Type 2 Diabetes, Diabetes in Pregnancy, and a College Student with Diabetes. 
• A Forum for women with diabetes to ask each other questions
• A Diabetes Buddy support system to connect women in need of support
• Two stores dedicated specifically to the needs of women with diabetes (an Amazon Bookstore & a "Taking Care of You Store" featuring purses, organizers and supplies)

Go check it out, Ladies.  Love to hear your impressions.

GlucoSurfer.org, etc. - What Do You Think?

So I noticed that some of you are only interested in Health 2.0 stuff if it's all-diabetes, all-the-time.  OK, then.  Here are two more new sites aimed directly at us PWDs:

* WeAreDiabetic.org - yet another social support network for the diabetic community.  This one has a very Flickr-ish look and feel, IMHO.  It's created by the folks at WeAre.Us, who've recently launched online communities for Crohns, Parkinson's Disease, and Huntington's Disease.  Seems like you can't view too much of the content without registering, which I haven't done yet, to be honest.

Mainly I wonder how they will compete with our friends who've created such great groups at TuDiabetes, DiabetesDaily, and DiabetesTalkFest, not to mention newer communities like DiabetesFriends.net, mentioned yesterday.  I'd love to hear your feedback on the many new D-communities emerging.  What attracts you or turns you off? What would motivate you most to register and get involved?

and

* Glucosurfer.org - yet another online tool for keeping meticulous records of your blood glucose readings. This one is hosted out of Germany and is "scientifically supervised" by the Department of Diabetes Research, according to founder Holger Schmeken. You keep records on your mobile phone, and zap them to the Glucosurfer site using wireless technology.  Watch this YouTube clip to see how the system works. (Never mind that accent :)

Once your results are transferred to the site, you can chart your glucose results in detail, and "drag" the diagrams with your mouse for copying elsewhere, just like Google Maps.  Using a Google Group tool, you can also "share your diary" and post questions to the community.

Holger would love some feedback on the site and its usefulness from our largely-American community here.

Again, my question is: how will a site like this stack up against SugarStats, SweetSpot.dm,  MySugarLevel, MyInsulinLog and the many other sites designed for diabetic online record-keeping?  Thoughts, anyone? 

btw, the reason all this Health 2.0 stuff matters, is -- as insiders note -- "until relatively recently, patients didn't network."  Nor could we use the Web to actually help us improve our disease management.  The fact that new technology now enables us to do these things is definitely changing the world.  Or at least, transforming the experience of being a patient, in a good way.

Health 2.0 Strikes Again (Some More)

More new stuff on the web for us patient-types -- wow, there's a lot of them!

* Last week over at Diabetes Daily, Elizabeth and David launched DailyHealth.net -- a new "health community covering chronic conditions, dieting, parenting, dating & marriage, yoga," and a whole lot more.  Interestingly, the site will include some free promotional opportunities for doctors and other health professionals. If you'd like to promote your practice, go on over there and contact the organizers. 

* DiabetesFriends.net, a new "Facebook-like" social networking space for diabetics, described so well by Kerri HERE.

* HealthLat.com -- this is very cool! It's an independent consumer-driven patient safety report program for all sorts of drugs.  Finally, a place where you can easily check other people's experiences, and report your own. "A highlight of the tool is people with multiple complications can get answers for highly personalized questions like this: 'How effective is Exubera for a woman around 55-64, 110 lb, who has GERD, is allergic to tree pollen, and is having a saddle nose now?'" Check it out.

* Vitals.com -- a new online doctor evaluation service that will proposes to "streamline consumers' search for 'Doctor Right' to a matter of minutes."  For the first time ever, patients will have access to a unified, comprehensive database "containing all the crucial information needed to make an educated decision when choosing a health care provider."

I like the clear & easy interface. I tried searching for endos in a town near me, and it worked extremely well.  According to the press release, Vitals provides "close to 100 million data points on more than 720,000 active U.S. doctors... available at no cost to the user."  Not bad at all.

* Zume Life -- a site focused on helping individuals with their health self-care activities.  They're developing a funky product/service (pictured), which is still in the prototype stage, but you can read a little about it or volunteer to be a beta tester here. 

Basically they're hoping to help people:

** Remember -- to take your meds, check your biometrics and symptoms, ... follow your regimen

** Record -- all your health-related activities (meds, diet, exercise, biometrics, symptoms)

** Review -- your health status and activities over time, in useful correlated ways, so you can see what works and what doesn't, and how your particular body behaves

** Respond -- provide you and your caregivers with early alerts from automated analyses of your on-going health activities information, and providing tailored information based on these analyses.

Hmmph, can't wait to see that in action.

* And then there's CONFIDANT -- developing more mobile communication solutions for chronic disease management.  Essentially, this one is a mobile phone-based system that can communicate with multiple home medical devices.   So if you have diabetes, for example, you can upload your glucometer readings and other stats (simple info about diet, exercise and medication routine) to share with your provider, in real-time even -- if you can find a doc who'd play.  I know there are a number of companies developing similar systems, but this one seems particularly confident (heh!) about the broad future of their "solution."

* On a more political note, check out ChangeNow4Health -- an "open community dedicated to improving the nation's health care system through immediate action."   Basically, a networking and advocacy site for healthcare reform.  Consumers, Providers, Employers and Health Plans are all invited to "take action now" by learning, budgeting, embracing technology, yada yada yada.  Note that this site was developed and is presumably run by Humana, "one of the nation's largest publicly traded health benefits companies, with approximately 11.3 million medical members." How clever of them to create an online community site with such an autonomous look and feel.  Although their messages aren't bad, it kind of makes me itchy.

* MedPedia - this one's still in closed beta.  It's a community of volunteers organizing and building "the world's best information about medicine, health, and the body." MedPedia is associated with Harvard Medical School and brags that it "has some of the top people in medicine on its Board of Advisors."  If you're interested in a taste of this New Age medical encyclopedia, looks like you can download a PalmOS version HERE.

Got more Health 2.0 stuff to report?  I sure do like to keep the D-Community up on this stuff, so email me HERE.

Grand Rounds - Plug In Here

Thanks to our fearless leader Nicholas Genes, Grand Rounds is going strong.  That's the weekly roundup of what's happening in the medical blogosphere.  I'll be hosting here next Tuesday, Feb. 5, with an emphasis on... you guessed it, Health 2.0. 

This means we're showcasing anything having to do with:

• Consumers & health care providers working together in new and powerful ways
  
• Helping consumers become empowered and knowledgeable
• Making health care more cost-efficient
• Price and quality "transparency" (WYSIWYG)
• And of course new online/tech information tools that enable all of this

Please send submissions to info(at)diabetesmine.com by noon Sunday, Feb. 3.

Here's to the social networking revolution in health care!