ReliefInsite.com
ReliefInsite.com is yet another site/service for healthcare consumers. This on helps patients track chronic pain in great detail (location, time, type, interference with daily life) and securely share the information with appropriate healthcare providers.
This isn’t wildly dissimilar in concept from SugarStats for diabetics and Fertility Friend for women attempting to conceive. All of these help the patient conveniently track the minute details of important health information that is of use to both the patient and the patient’s healthcare provider(s).
Even if I liked the “2.0″ suffix generally (I don’t), I wouldn’t want to call these “Health 2.0″ tools because they’re not really social. What are we to call this class of tools? What other sorts of patients would most benefit from such tools?
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October 2nd, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Hi David,
I’m very glad to see you are back and going strong. Great post, I agree that this type of consumer health/medical tool needs a snappy name. Unfortunately I’m not great at coming up with such. I will be thinking about it, though.
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:03 pm
The 2.0 aspect to our service comes in the context of shared personal health records, in a closed and secure setting. It is not social networking as we know it at Facebook, MySpace, etc. but we do provide a platform for pain/disease-specific interaction with patients by doctors/caregivers and through automated means, to track a patient’s condition and respond pro-actively. Is that 3.0? That said, it is our plan to provide more community channels to our users who are anxious to tell their stories and be heard.
Take care,
Fred
October 4th, 2007 at 11:39 am
[...] The other day, I mentioned a class of sites/services that includes SugarStats, ReliefInsite, and Fertility Friend – sites that help patients track data that is of diagnositic or therapeutic value to the patient or the patient’s healthcare providers. Wouldn’t it be great to have a free PHR service that included an optional module for each of these purposes? [...]
October 4th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Great idea! I support it.
October 4th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
How about ‘useless’? What doctor wants another drug seeker providing pseudovalidated measures of pain, an experience that is impossible to verify or objectify? Sure, the patient may like it, but what use is it in the grand scheme?
October 5th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Zagreus-
The doctors I’ve encountered actually want to know details of the pain their patients experience. Many actually ask their patients to map and track their pain. I am lead to believe that the patient’s perception of and ability to articulate his/her pain is of very real use to the physicians treating the pain or the pain’s cause.
-David
October 12th, 2007 at 6:53 am
David,
We couldn’t agree more!
The ReliefInsite platform is designed exactly for this purpose. Today we offer connectivity between healthcare providers and patients (securely & HIPAA compliant) in realtime – specifically for tracking pain. And it’s FREE and without ads. (Oh, sorry for the sales pitch.)