Institute For The Future

Health 2.0 Tools for Consumers (Part 1)

Live blogging began to catch up with me yesterday, but I am going to try to share with you, in almost real-time, the parade of health-related tools that I've been sitting through for the last hour and a half. Much to the amusement of the packed ballroom, conference organizer Matthew Holt has been parading around in a skirt and wig, impersonating a fictitous patient, Mathilda. First, Mathilda was shown an iPhone application called A.D.A.M. that allowed her to navigate through a variety of information--including videos--to help her understand her health symptoms.

Later, she "gobbed up" (Matt--and his alter ego--is a Brit) a couple of DNA samples that were then processed by 23andMe and Navigenics at lightening speeds. I was particularly interested in what Mari Baker of Navigenics had to say (I will blog about it more in a separate post). She talked about the benefit of getting "superpersonalized" health information (specifically, genetic information). The company's genetic counselors report that customers have shown "new levels of inspiration to take action" with regard to their health.

Adam Bosworth, who has been flying low since leaving Google Health, gave us a sneak peek at his new project (Mathilda was his first customer!). Keas is "dedicated to helping people stay as possible." The site will (eventually) allow consumers to do things like import data from their Google Health or HealthVault records; keep track of lab test results; graph that information over time; and get advice about how to make changes to improve health outcomes.