Health and Crowdsourcing

To me, the idea described in this article is incredibly exciting. Many organizations have begun to exploit the talent and knowledge that exists outside of our 'physical' and 'social' spheres/networks. How many better decisions could be made with a standardized information about genes? That is the question Friend hopes to answer and he believes that quite a bit can be gained. I tend to agree based on the experience of innovation on the Internet.

Thoughts?

The article describes:

"If Merck’s Stephen Friend gets his way, about five years from now, he will have ushered in a new era in which biologists work together to make drugs that are better than any company can today inside its walls."

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"Sage is built on the premise that vast networks of genes get perturbed, or thrown off-kilter, in complex diseases like cancer, diabetes, and obesity. Scientists can’t just pick one faulty gene or protein and make a magic bullet to shut it down. But what if researchers around the world capturing genomic profiles on patients could get all of their data to talk to each other through a free, open database? A researcher in Seattle looking at how all 35,000 genes in breast cancer patients are dialed on or off at a certain stage of illness might be able to make critical comparisons by stacking results up against a deeper and broader data pool that integrates clinical, genetic, and other molecular data from peers in, say, San Francisco, New Haven, CT, or anywhere else.

Besides helping scientists aim higher, this will make medicine more transparent than ever, Friend says. Physicians from around the world could look at genetic profiles from their patients, match it up with the Sage database, and then prescribe the medicine most likely to work, Friend says. The FDA could look for insight into the proper balance between the risk and benefit of a drug. Health insurers could look at drugs for certain patients that have the greatest likelihood of success, and pay for ones that work. Drug companies could use the database to weed out treatments that are bound to fail or cause side effects for patients with certain genetic profiles, potentially saving years of wasted effort and hundreds of millions of dollars.

“We see this becoming like the Google of biological science. It will be such an informative platform, you won’t be able to make decisions without it,” Schadt says. He adds: “We want this to be like the Internet. Nobody owns it.”"

Metcalfe's Law and Healthcare

To follow-up on my healthcare based comment from class, here a website for a company named Wellsphere that boasts around 4 million monthly unique visitors, according to TechCrunch. This company is an example of an innovator harnessing Metcalfe's law to change the heathcare industry through personalization and community interaction over a growing network.

From the company FAQ:

What is Wellsphere?

Wellsphere is the online destination for all your health information and support needs. You’ll find articles from the world’s best medical experts, patients bravely sharing their stories of survival, and inspiring healthy living professionals helping guide you toward a happy, healthy life. As a member, you can get your questions answered, have access to free tools to help you achieve your health goals, enjoy the support of our caring community, exchange tips and advice, find local resources, and have a chance to tell your own success story.

Most interestingly, Wellsphere also reports that:

"Wellsphere builds proprietary health community platforms to help large organizations improve their employees’ health, and reduce healthcare costs. Stanford University’s BeWell@Stanford platform – powered by Wellsphere at http://stanford.wellsphere.com – has demonstrated the power of community to engage tens of thousands of people in taking steps to improve their health and well-being. Within the Stanford community, Wellsphere’s BeWell platform has achieved incredible results, driving an unprecedented level of engagement in healthy activities and behaviors across Stanford’s faculty, staff and students. Wellsphere’s public community is beginning to replicate this success on a global scale."

As discussed in class, connectivity between patients could turn the healthcare model on its head to a more client or, as Mr. Barret of Intel says, "a customer-driven service." For example, networks give patients greater clout and will likely give rise to unmet needs because patients can now join together to create demands, share their unique knowledge and experiences, and give each other support. This networking and communication among patients was previously unavailable at such a large scale and speed.

Harnessing these networking/community based changes in healthcare requires a tomorrow based approach that healthcare providers would be wise to balance with their today planning to facilitate innovation before other competitors win in this emerging space. The key question is how business will use IT to enable these innovative changes in a similar way that technology facilitates Wellsphere's virtual network.