icyou
Simply put, icyou is the Youtube of health-related videos. It launched around September 2007 by BenefitFocus, a Charleston (SC) based healthcare benefits software provider. The name icyou stands for ‘Intensive Content for Your Health’…a twist on the actual ICUs (Intensive Care Units). Basic idea is for icyou to be the exchange hub for patients, providers and caregivers to share...
Read MoreMedpedia
Medpedia is an attempt to apply crowdsourcing concept to medical knowledge, just like Wikipedia. It launched in beta mid-February this year, with some big names backing it (Harvard, Stanford, NHS, AHA, ACP to name a few). The idea is to create a collaborative body of knowledge using physicians and Ph.Ds as gatekeepers. Anyone can contribute- physicians/Ph.Ds become directors editors (after...
Read MoreMyca
Primary care is a frustrating experience for most patients as well as physicians. Patients find the experience inconvenient, borderline impersonal and hardly get access to any of their resulting information from the visit. Physicians are hard-pressed for time since they are mostly drowned in paperwork. Considering the rise in HSA, high-deductibles, and no-insurance it’s logical that...
Read MoreBodyMedia
Pittsburgh-based BodyMedia makes personal monitoring devices that can help consumers keep track of their physical activity and nutrition. Their products and accessories contain innovative sensors that measure physiological data like heart rate, body temperature, calories burnt, sleep duration, etc . The collected data is then interpreted online to help wearers aim for and monitor a balanced,...
Read MoreTrialX
TrialX.org is an fantastic example of how the web enables linking specific demand with relevant supply. The services matches users (patients, affected individuals) to ongoing clinical trials using their submitted personal health information. What a great startup idea. Service demand can be tapped easily since users are searching the web for highly specific keywords (almost all include the keyword...
Read MoreMedHelp
Not much can be said about the whole healthcare social networking phenomenon now. There are plenty of sites out there, enough to make me almost give up trying to review all of them. But pioneers like MedHelp are worthwhile to talk about. MedHelp gives the (now) standard online community features to users looking for better information and support around thier medical problems. It was started...
Read MoreLifeShirt
LifeShirt is a wearable ‘smart fabric‘ that can be used to remotely monitor multiple vital signs. It is made by VivoMetrics, a Ventura, CA based startup founded in 1999. From what I can gather, LifeShirt captures data around heart rate, respiration, posture, activity level, temperature, limb II ECG and can connect to optional peripheral devices for EEG, skin temperature, blood oxygen...
Read MoreCarol
Consumer-Driven Healthcare (CDHC) may not have arrived yet, but startups have been sprouting around it for a while. Carol.com is the brainchild of Tony Miller (founder of Definity Health, another CDHC company that he sold to UnitedHealth Group in 2004) and was started in late 2007. Carol.com’s original intent was to be a ‘marketplace for care’- a place where consumers with fat...
Read MoreMyFoodMyHealth
There are plenty of medical conditions that necessitate dietary changes (Celiac’s, Diabetes, etc.) and it’s a hassle for the affected individual and/or primary caregiver to manage cooking with restrictions like gluten-free or lactose-free ingredients. MyFoodMyHealth is a startup with the self-stated mission of ‘helping you feel better by eating deliciously’. They provide...
Read MoreDailyStrength
Online communities are perhaps the cornerstone of web these days, and I’m begining to find so many of them related to health that I’m slowly running out of things to say around the topic. DailyStrength.org is a place for patients/family members to find others like them and anonymously connect, share and discuss all aspects of a particular disease or condition. From discussing the...
Read MoreFoodFeed
Since my last rant was around twitter, I thought I’ll follow up with another one around same topic. First notable thing about FoodFeed is that its not really useful (their own words, not mine). Its a service that lets you share your eating habits on twitter. They are still in beta so maybe other features are in pipeline, but honestly, FoodFeed seems to be a solution looking for a problem....
Read MoreOrganizedWisdom
OrganizedWisdom describes itself as the first human-powered, doctor-guided search service for health. What the site promises to provide are noise-free, simple but organized search pages that list relevant information on health topics. Its a crowdsourcing model at heart- these pages are essentially hand-crafted search results aggregated by OrganizedWisdom Guides and Physician Reviewers (eligible...
Read MoreSugarStats
SugarStats is a hawaii-based startup inspired by one diabetics’ unfulfilled need to manage his disease data better. Marston Alfred (the site’s creator) found the online diabetes management solutions boring and inaccessible, so he embarked on crating a clean, user-friendly website where diabetes could track their sugar levels and network with other affected individuals. They have...
Read MoreFitBit
Fitbit is a startup trying to leverage the rising wellness trend- they manufacture a small device that you can wear throughout the day to find out how much physical activity you did, how well you slept etc. The tiny device sells for $99 and contains a motion sensor (like the Nintendo Wii) that converts 3D motion data into useful interpretations about your lifestyle. In a 7-day period, whenever...
Read MoredeCODEme
I’m not a fan of direct to consumer genetic testing, but that market is hard to ingore now. deCODEme (excellent name choice, btw) will analyze your genetic information, store it securely and provide you with updates on your genetic profile “as new knowledge becomes available in the field”. There is no doubt that our genes hold valuable information that can help predict and treat...
Read MoreWebDiet
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...
Read MoreFamilyhistory.hhs.gov
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...
Read MoreReliefInsite
Pain is a subjective symptom that is often hard to correctly diagnose and treat on long-term basis. It’s the focus of ReliefInsite- an online web diary for patients with chronic pain. The idea is first to provide a simple platform to record and store pain-related data and provide easy-to-interpret analysis to patients. Secondly, this enables a longitudinal insight for providers into the key...
Read MoreMedstory
Medstory is a health information search engine that went into a public beta in mid 2006. In feb 2007, it was acquired by Microsoft. Their interface is pretty minimalistic, with only a search keyword box on the homepage. The results returned with an option to refine it in various categories like conditions, procedures, trials, articles etc. The google-like interaction and navigation reduces...
Read MoreMEDgle
With a play on google’s name, MEDgle offers symptom based health information search. The idea is to ‘empower patients in their discussions with physicians’, by making relevant content easy to find. The navigation is pretty simple and straightforward. MEDgle’s output is a probabilistic list of disease/conditions based on the user input. The content is authored by their...
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