New NHS 2.0 Not for Profit Start-Up - Interested?

Health 2.0 is part of the future for the NHS. The term, derived from Web 2.0, covers a large bucket of web-based applications, all designed to give patients, healthcare 'consumers' and communities more information, influence and/or control over their healthcare experience or health status.

The Health 2.0 'movement' started in the States, mostly West Coast. I went to the annual Health 2.0 Conferrence last October. About 1000 people (mostly application developers, clinicians and policy commentators) spent a lively 3 days in a Marriott hotel basement, reviewing over 100 health 2.0 applications and exploring where the 'movement' might go next.

To-date the potential of Web 2.0 has pretty much passed the NHS by. Partly because IT staff are largely preoccupied with trying to get NPfiT 'on track' and most managers aren't that familiar with net based appplications. That's going to change soon. The DH is formulating a new Digital Strategy that will, in part, embrace the experimentation with what is becoming thought of as NHS 2.0

I'm going to start a not for profit to work in this area. The basic idea is to help PCTs and Trusts to explore possibilities with talented application developers. Quick beta versions of NHS 2.0 applications can be generated and tested and those that prove to be most attractive to users can then be picked up and funded more fully. Let me know if you are interested in getting involved. It'd be good to find two or three partners who have something to offer. Also let me know if your organisaion is interested in being an early customer!

There is enormous potential here, (despite the digital divide) to help millions of people make their lives a bit easier by the use of relatively simple, very cheap and practical NHS 2.0 applications. Who knows, some may even turn out, as a by-product, to be useful in helping the NHS achieve some of it's key strategic objectives.

A few of my favourite applications showcased at the Health 2.0 Conference are:

Careflash

Limeade

The Prevention Plan

American Well

My Medlab

PatientsLikeMe

WeAre.Us

Sermo

Healthline

nhs 2.0health 2.0nhs it

Comments

[Mohammad Al-Ubaydli]

This sounds great Steve, and I am interested to learn more. Drop me a line when you have a moment. We develop web 2.0 applications for the NHS at Patients Know Best so we might be able to help other. At any rate, we cataloguing the work of others on the personal health records wiki:

http://wiki.patientsknowbest.com/

And would love to add information about your work. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing you at the Health 2.0 conference in Boston.

[Steve Pashley]

Hi Mo, Hope you enjoyed Boston - unfortunately i couldn't make it. Thanks for your offer to add info about the new nfp I am setting up - I'll be back in touch in a few weeks.

I've just spent an hour browsing through your wiki - very informative. learn't a lot. It's a great resource.

Regards
Steve

[Reg Edward]

Quite keen to learn more, interested in an app that might help me with acute pain management at home .

[Steve Pashley]

Reg,

The only app I know of that is designed to help with pain management is http://www.reliefinsite.com/ Hope this is helpful.

I've started a company called Health2Works - you can follow on twitter at http://twitter.com/health2works