Kate Ho - Health 2.0: The birth of User Generated Healthcare?

User generated content is now an important part of the internet world.
Websites such as Youtube, Facebook, Digg and Wikipedia have spurred on
a new era through harnessing the power of communities, data sharing,
and user collaboration - often termed "Web 2.0". Healthcare does not
escape the growth of the Web 2.0 phenomenon. Websites such as
PatientsLikeMe (www.patientslikeme.com) or BrainTalk
(http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/) enable suffers with the same
conditions to meet; there are growing numbers of Doctors and other
health practitioners blogging about their work; and there are even
websites which allow users to rate their hospitals
(http://www.ratemyhospital.ie/) or Doctors (http://ratemds.com/).

In this talk, I examine the ethos behind the Web 2.0, and explore its
implications for Healthcare in the 21st Century. I will talk about the
potential directions for growth and provide lots of examples
demonstrating the websites/companies that are operating within this
sphere. This will be a highly interactive talk, where I encourage
everyone to discuss the merits (and downfalls)  of Health 2.0.