Guest Author Walter Jessen from the Highlight HEALTH blog

Before it gets too far behind us, I wanted to write briefly about the Health 2.0 Conference, which was held in San Francisco on October 22 and 23rd. The Health 2.0 Conference focuses on the application of Web 2.0 technologies to the fields of medicine and health care. Specifically, I wanted to comment on health search, the semantic web and the demonstration of the health 2.0 service iMedix.

Search engines today rely extensively on keywords. However, with health-related searches, context or meaning takes on great importance. Consider this: a study earlier this summer found that simply replacing the search term “vaccine safety” with “vaccine danger” replaced virtually all accurate search results (out of the first 20) with inaccurate results [1]. Granted, there are several limitations to the study (small sample size, controversial topic), but it nonetheless illustrates how a single keyword can dramatically alter search results.

Frequently, health search results are incomplete, inaccurate or altogether wrong. Indeed, although there is a large amount of reliable health information online, an equal or greater amount of misinformation also exists. Many health seekers have grown accustomed to repeatedly reviewing search results, revising the search criteria and searching again until they find the right keywords that return the desired information. Ultimately, health seekers are faced with determining which sources of information are reliable. One way to confront this issue is to discard the traditional search engine approach based on keywords and use Semantic Web technology.

One company embracing Semantic Web technology to improve health search is iMedix.  As part of the series on Social Networks and Health, I recently reviewed iMedix at Highlight HEALTH 2.0:

Using medical semantic technology to translate health questions into a series of weighted medical terms, iMedix returns relevant search results from top-rated sources. iMedix CEO and cofounder Amir Leitersdorf presented a demo of the health 2.0 service at the Health 2.0 Conference. The fast-paced iMedix demo (presenters were only allotted 4 minutes for each presentation) provides a nice overview of what happens “behind the scenes” when a question is posted to the iMedix community.

For more articles on Web 2.0 in health and medicine, visit Highlight HEALTH 2.0. Is there a specific health 2.0 website you visit regularly and would like to review? Are you interested in writing a guest post or co-blogging about social health networks and the integration of Web 2.0 technologies into health and medicine? Let me know! My hope is that we can teach each other and help people become more familiar with these websites and what they have to offer. Perhaps you’d even like to contribute to Highlight HEALTH. Leave a comment for more information.

Here’s some additional resources to learn more about the recent Health 2.0 Conference:

• Jen McCabe Gorman at Health Management Rx: Health 2.0 Review – Smoke, Fires, and Companies to Watch
• AltSearchEngines: Hope’s report on Medical Search at Health 2.0
• AltSearchEngines: Health 2.0 Conference Review – Day 2
• Nitin Karandikar at The Software Abstractions Blog: 8 Top Trends at the Health 2.0 Conference, 2008
• Berci Meskó at ScienceRoll: Health 2.0 Conference: Video Interviews
• Matthew Holt at The Health Care Blog: Some more reflections on Health 2.0

Additional Health 2.0 resources are listed in the Highlight HEALTH Web Directory.

References

1. Kortum et al. The impact of inaccurate Internet health information in a secondary school learning environment. J Med Internet Res. 2008 Jun 30;10(2):e17.
   View abstract

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 at 9:27 pm and is filed under Guest Authors, News. 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.