At HealthSphere, we pride ourselves in providing only accurate and highly relevant health information. We don’t create content – there’s more than enough of that already – we provide the tools necessary for the quick discovery of content. Of course, there is value in the opinions and experiences of others, expert or not, but at the end of the day when someone is looking for health information, it’s all about finding relevant content they can trust.

I am glad you brought up the “written by people who do not have a clue, let alone ANY medical training [of any kind] at all.” I have no experience with any kind of medical education, knowledge or even the slightest clue of a tenth of the topics covered on OW, yet for some reason they tried to recruit me to review cards there!?! That was my first impression of the company, if they have a bunch of people like me as the final word on their cards, the info will be so off base the site will give the big fail so quick. In my opinion, medical knowledge or advice is not something I would trust from any random joe, so why would I trust anything from random people who work there, considering they have absolutely no experience or knowledge? They advertise that a doctor reviews every card, personally I think that is a bunch of BS, considering neither me nor others that I know work higher up there have any training whatsoever, guess anyone can be a doctor now…

is spam.. pure and simple

an adwords linkfarm on the order of squidoo, hubpages and the other crap that litters the net

If I write “fixing our health care system is an enormous, complex task,” I would be anticipating defeat, as per our brilliant presidential candidates, who, of course, as professional politicians, are expert, skillful panderers.

Ours is a country of deep contradictions: most Americans consider nurses with the highest regards, while considering physicians in general we hear all kinds of harsh, negative opinions, although they would consider their personal/family doctor as the best… [?]
What is my point? It is that it would be many, many years before our ‘unfair and expensive’ health care system would be changed in a sensible, meaningful way.

Foreign models would not work, for many reasons: with the exception of many Cuban expatriates in Southern Florida and contrary to Michael Moore’s belief that the Cuban health system is better than the US system (there everybody is covered, but they do not have antibiotics, however, they ‘cure’ cancer with shark fins extracts!).

Why is it that our system would not change? It is because at its core, money and greed are paramount. And they are NOT where most Americans believe they are.
Your company, as MedPedia , will provide an useful service for many, although very limited. Certainly not “global,” as they believe…

But I have a certain understanding of the business: yes, good service and good information, support, hope, are laudable goals. An IPO or buyout would be powerfully appealing down the road. Good luck. I would be visiting your site…

To be clear, we are in the very early stages of what we are building. We’re excited about the progress we’ve made with very modest funding to date and now with such a great investor group and team with us we will be able to dramatically scale and improve a model that we know is working and already helping a lot of people. This is incredibly exciting to our team whose number one goal is simply to help more people and find ways to innovate and improve our health system. This is our goal. We realize our service is not perfect yet, which is why it still says beta on it, but we too are hopeful (and confident) that we are making significant improvements everyday from the cluttered, confusing and spam littered state that health search is in today.

We have a big vision, and we know that we will be able to help a lot of people get better access to more useful information by using really good collaboration tools and the expertise of not only MD’s (which we have many on our team), but also patient advocates, expert researchers, health foundations, nurses, caregivers, etc. who also bring an alternative and useful perspective on health. There are other types of important information besides the same redundant libraries of evidence-based content that are useful. For example, personal stories and wisdom from people living with an ailment or disease. Yes, accuracy and credibility of health information is paramount which is why we link out to the most useful and credible health resources, support groups, community sites, etc on each WisdomCard. We also have intensive training and review of our health guides and we have a certification program and continuous training for our full time guides. Additionally, we are currently making important improvements to all of the content on our WisdomCards by adding citations so readers can clearly see what sources particular information is sourced from. Because we believe in transparency and allowing alternative viewpoints with regard to health, we are also slowly opening up our service so that other MD’s (like you Holly) can give your feedback on each WisdomCard. You already can contribute by recommending links, or requesting WisdomCards that may be missing from our Library, but for any of you doubters out there who don’t believe we can do better as a community (than an algorithm alone can) we’d love to hear your suggestions and feedback. Our plan is to keep getting better every day.

Thanks again for your interest and thoughts.

Naturally, in a free country like ours, anybody can challenge this notion. It is a matter of common sense, not “freedom of speech.” After all the word “foolish” has a clear meaning, particularly when taking care of our health, again, relying on less than truthful info.

Hope goes a long way helping patients recover from sickness, and, in fact, it must be part of any sound medical treatment. As it is patient participation, in an effective and honest way. Tim Russert knew that he was sick. From the NY Times: he had diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease, etc., however, he only ‘tried’ to change his eating habits and lifestyle. Not blaming him, just mentioning what we see everyday in our practices; just remember that over half of the US population is overweight and obese.

You have a good point regarding trusting [all] MDs: like in many other fields, there are a few crooked ones, plus those from other cultures where decency, ethical and moral behavior are not strong features…
You might still believe that MDs are “fat cats” not deserving of trust, but the younger generation is more sensitive, more open-minded.
Yes, transparency is trust, but only when completed by excellent medical knowledge, skills, expertise, which you will not find on the support sites you mention.
Yes, doctors should listen more to patients and write fewer prescriptions. The other side is that a physician’s practice is not all “peaches,” Wednesdays’ afternoons golf, long and expensive vacations, etc. If you care, check this June 17 article: “Eyes Bloodshot, Doctors Vent Their Discontent.”

Talking about Mahalo, here’s an interview with Jason Calacanis. He mentions a lot of interesting things about Mahalo, the concept and the vision.

You are correct about some health sites’ contents written by people with limited or non-existent medical knowledge or training; the public at large do not know this. In fact, one of my neighbors, a “MA” or “Medical Assistant,” writes for OrganizedWisdom.com.

Medical assistants are trained only for a few months, to check blood pressure, take temperature, do some paperwork at a medical practice, etc. In general, they have no reliable knowledge of legitimate health and medical information and most of them parrot what is out there taken as true “health” facts, such as “autism caused by mercury in vaccines” or “tilt you head back if a nosebleed occurs,” etc. By the way, both are fallacies.
Most patients (most of us) without a clue are inclined to believe them. My family’s experience includes trying to communicate with medical assistants that do not even speak English.

I don’t think “cheerful” is the right word for what I feel about Organized Wisdom. It’s more like “hopeful”.

MDs can no longer expect to thrive assuming they are the health information gatekeepers. The self-policing model of collective wisdom is too powerful. MDs need to reposition themselves as health consultants–educated partners that help you sift through the systemic mire that is the healthcare industry (in the U.S. anyway).

Services such as Organized Wisdom, Daily Strength, and the others allow patients to take an active role in their health and just maybe allows the doctor more time listening to their patients and less time prescribing (wrongly in some cases).

You mention “trusting” content. Well there are doctor “trust” issues these days as well. Transparency is trust.

My company signed up with hlife.info about four months ago and it has been excellent so far; we receive a free, great monthly newsletter with a lot of useful health and medical information.

They also offer an email service [$29] to communicate with a physician and ask about any medical topic.
My wife tried a telephone consultation service from them (I believe still in beta) offering subscribers to talk to a doctor for about 15 minutes. It was really interesting and useful.

Regarding other sites, revolutionhealth [Steve case's toy] did not include physicians early on to produce/supervise content [???] they do now, but on a limited basism, for content as well as PR tools.
Medpedia has a few MDs [mainly from other countries] which are paid about $20/hour to produce
“quality” content…
Check medixnet.info / hlife.info [I do occasional consulting for them]. This is a 10 year-old company founded and managed by MDs –no advertising; they even offer email consultations with them…
[Hlife.info/aboutus]

Patients generally check 6-12 websites when looking for health information. When they see repetition of content, they begin to deem it credible. Not to mention the support and empathy found online that is seriously lacking in the 2-3 minutes they generally have with their doctor. Organized Wisdom is a great service.

this is Squidoo for health.

frankly this site is just a bunch of spam… and it won’t be long before all their clever seo tactics will be slapped by google.

wait till google comes out with their knol product.

Example: preparing or heating food in a microwave oven causes blood cholesterol levels to rise [!!!!????] –Of course, this is in the public domain, but, medically speaking, it is just one of thousands of stupid myths that some morons keep repeating…