{"id":648163,"date":"2013-03-21T17:53:25","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T21:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=622775"},"modified":"2013-03-21T17:53:25","modified_gmt":"2013-03-21T21:53:25","slug":"personalizing-health-online-where-can-you-go-for-medical-information-that-matches-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/648163","title":{"rendered":"Personalizing health online: where can you go for medical information that matches you?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you go online to look for health information \u2013 as about a third of Americans do<\/a> \u2013 chances are the information targets a general audience, not someone with your specific medical history, risk profile or needs.\u00a0But if you\u2019re looking up diabetes complications, for example, it makes a difference if you\u2019re an older man juggling different medications or a pregnant young woman with no other health conditions.<\/p>\n

The larger promise of personalized medicine that considers genomic data on top of medical history and clinical data is still\u00a0on the verge of reality<\/a>. But, in the meantime, a few companies are at least beginning to bring a new level of personalization in health care to the web.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Palo Alto-based HealthTap<\/a>, which lets people ask anonymous questions of a network of 35,000 doctors online, released a new feature that prompts them to tag questions with relevant personal characteristics<\/a>, including age, gender, prior conditions and medications. (Previously, users had the option to tag questions, but now it\u2019s more front and center and they can add personal characteristics across more variables.) The new addition enables that particular user to receive a tailored reply and also means that, as other users searching the site add information about themselves, they\u2019ll see the content most specific to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazon optimizes for your taste, Facebook optimizes for your social graph. We\u2019re doing it for your social graph,\u201d said HealthTap cofounder and CEO Ron Gutman.<\/p>\n

HealthTap has long offered tools that enable users to store detailed personal health information with the goal of personalizing content but, as the demise of Google Health<\/a> showed, consumer personal health records are a tough nut to crack.\u00a0 People don\u2019t care enough to take the time to fill out online forms if they don\u2019t see the reasons for using them, or they\u2019re concerned about privacy implications. HealthTap, which is HIPAA-compliant, is trying to meet people where they are, hoping that if they can see the benefits of providing a little bit of personal information, they\u2019ll be incentivized to provide more.<\/p>\n

Now that the site has received provided more than half a billion answers (since launching in 2010), Gutman said it’s reached the critical mass for tagged answers to provide meaningful personalization.<\/p>\n

Hoping to personalize digital content with data provided by personal health tracking devices, earlier this month, WebMD announced a partnership with Qualcomm Life\u2019s 2net platform<\/a>\u00a0 to create a cloud-based health hub for consumers<\/a>. Once users connect their tracking devices to the platform, WebMD said it would be able to aggregate data from those devices and use it customize searches so that, instead of just getting generic diabetes information, users could receive content specific to their needs. The companies haven\u2019t yet released anything yet but say they\u2019d roll out their first product later this year. While consumers may see value in personalized information and insights, they could also be reticent to store their data in aggregate with a company known more for content than health services.<\/p>\n

Smaller startups are also taking a stab at personalization with sites meant to take aim at “Dr. Google.” Symcat<\/a>\u00a0analyzes patient-provided symptoms and personal characteristics against disease prevalence data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other public sources to provide people with likely possible diagnoses. And Meddik<\/a>\u00a0goes beyond symptoms to help people access online articles, general resources and answers to questions provided by people in their “health networks” (or who share their condition profiles and symptoms). On both sites, as users participate online, they develop profiles that are used to customize future content they receive.<\/p>\n

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