Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0: Tensions and Controversies in the Field August 7, 2008

Benjamin Hughes; Indra Joshi and Jonathan Wareham just published an article in the Journal of Medical Internet Research: Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0: Tensions and Controversies in the Field. They cited Scienceroll when defining medicine 2.0.

An excerpt:

The terms Medicine 2.0 and Health 2.0 were found to be very similar and subsume five major salient themes: (1) the participants involved (doctors, patients, etc); (2) its impact on both traditional and collaborative practices in medicine; (3) its ability to provide personalized health care; (4) its ability to promote ongoing medical education; and (5) its associated method- and tool-related issues, such as potential inaccuracy in enduser-generated content. In comparing definitions of Medicine 2.0 to eHealth, key distinctions are made by the collaborative nature of Medicine 2.0 and its emphasis on personalized health care. However, other elements such as health or medical education remain common for both categories. In addition, this emphasis on personalized health care is not a salient theme within the academic literature. Of 2405 papers originally identified as potentially relevant, we found 56 articles that were exclusively focused on Medicine 2.0 as opposed to wider eHealth discussions. Four major tensions or debates between stakeholders were found in this literature, including (1) the lack of clear Medicine 2.0 definitions, (2) tension due to the loss of control over information as perceived by doctors, (3) the safety issues of inaccurate information, and (4) ownership and privacy issues with the growing body of information created by Medicine 2.0.

In my opinion, health 2.0 focuses on healthcare and patient support while medicine 2.0 focuses on medical education and communication.