WebDiet January 4, 2009
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WebDiet is an online weight management tool that can help its users eat smarter and healthier. Its a service that proactively sends location-based, customized meal suggestions directly to mobile devices and helps keep track of what you eat.
The ides has potential. GPS-based real-time meal recommendations based on your daily intake requirements and goals can be a simple way to stick to healthy eating habits. Webdiet also has a feature where you can order your meal in advance through your mobile device. Not sure about their coverage though- feature like these need to have granular, wide geographical coverage before they can be found useful by users. Maybe we will see some social networking features in future (who is eating what in your network? Geez..).
They are currently in invite-only beta, but have plans to launch on a freemium model early 2009 (so you can join and get basic service for free, but it’ll cost you to upgrade to a preimum service with more features).
Familyhistory.hhs.gov December 5, 2008
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Dont think this one qualifies to be a 2.0 idea, but it got me thinking about one. On 25th November 2008, the US Surgeon General announced a major upgrade to their Family History Tool. It’s a part of the a national public health campaign, called the Surgeon General’s Family History Initiative, to encourage all American families to learn more about their family health history.
The web-based tool lets you create a complete family medical history including the closest family members and others like aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews. Users can print this organized family history information and for their family doctor, save to their own computer (*htm format) or share it with other family members (and let them contribute to it too). One can save partial effort and then reload the *htm back at a later time to complete. Same goes for importing it into PHRs or electronic medical records maintained by health organizations.
Knowing a family medical history is important in screening for a great number of conditions (cardiovascular disease; type 2 diabetes; hypertension; osteoporosis; breast cancer, colorectal cancer to name a few). The tool is a useful public awareness tool, no doubt. Perhaps it can spawn something like ancestry.com to let users collaborate and analyze this in a connected community manner. That would enable some fantastic research like manifestation of cancers across several generation and siblings or atavism in general.
DoubleCheckMD November 27, 2008
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Another consumer-oriented concept. This one is specifically for patients on multiple medications who are curious to find out how they interact and what side-effects are related to which.
DoubleCheckMD is an offering by a Cambridge, MA-based company called Enhanced Medical Decisions, founded by a physician from Harvard. It provides information around drug-drug interaction (including OTC, Vitamins and Herbs) and drug-symptom relation with the caveat “Please note that the information DoubleCheckMD.com provides is intended to help individuals to work with their medical professionals and is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute medical or healthcare advice and serves to supplement, not substitute for, the expertise and judgment of a healthcare professional.” Fair enough. I guess its more of a technology showcase currently, so I wont go into my ‘what is the business model’ rant.
Drug interaction can be an important aspect of care for patients taking multiple drugs, but I’m not convinced it is ready for prime time as an end-user (consumer) tool. Technologies like this are best served as a part of an overall patient portal offering or PHR.