As I write this review of Patient Power, I am listening to an MP3 of an interview on  amyotrophic lateral sclerosis conducted by the founder of Patient Power, Andrew Schorr. Here at ASE, we have been following the development of various health sites from health online patient communities (e.g., MedHelp, and RightHealth) to “pure” online patient communities like Patients Like Me.

I visited Patient Power because I was intrigued by Schorr’s comments here:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/081003-115541

where he says, “I am also excited about Health 2.0 and user generated content with a big emphasis on video – like CNN has with I-Reports. That’s what we will soon have at www.patientpower.info and relationships with big communities of patients who participate.”

If Schorr can keep up the caliber of the information he purveys in his audio materials, more power to him. Audio materials (you can request transcripts) form the bulk of the materials on Patient Power, which is a nice change of pace from text-heavy sites. Schorr has a pleasant, easy manner that humanizes difficult subjects—such as neurodegenerative diseases. Moreover, he has an impressive list of sponsors—not a bad thing to have the imprimatur of M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and UCSF Medical Center. That is more that can be said of many such sites.

Those of us going to Health 2.0 will be able to gauge better where things are going in this space.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 19th, 2008 at 1:44 pm and is filed under Reviews, Verticals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.