FROM: Patricia GuerraSUBJECT: Social Media and Computing TechnologiesDATE: February 6, 2015

Social technologies are becoming a powerful social matrix--a key piece of organizational infrastructure that links and engages employees, customers, and suppliers as never before (Bughin, Chui & Manyika, 2014). Among the Social Media tools applied to Healthcare, we can list: Internet support groups, Media sharing, Message boards and forums, Microblogs, Social games and challenges, Social networking sites, Online patient communities and Weblogs.By seeking and sharing information online, health consumers (or “e-patients”) are using Social Media to become more equipped, enabled, empowered, and engaged in managing their health, care and wellness (eHealth Report, 2013, p.7). From a Healthcare provider perspective, health workers are using Social Media to learn from experts and peers, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies are using it as a marketing tool as well. As patients and providers both move into virtual spaces, the patient-provider relationship will shift from an authoritative model to a partnership model, where patients are the primary researchers and providers offer alternative therapeutic options and information analysis (eHealth Report, 2013, p.13).

As a matter of fact, given the enormous quantity of available data and the ubiquitous property of the internet, there is trend about crowdsourcing scientific research among citizen scientists.Kevin Campbell, a professor of Manitoba, tells Newsweek: “With crowdsourcing you can get the public to do the work for you by making a game out of it.” On Kaggle, users can compete to solve real puzzles posed by industries and universities, and a leaderboard keeps track of which competitors are ahead in the “game.” The results, though, are serious. For example, Kaggle users recently worked on algorithms to predict the health of patients with HIV by finding makers in their HIV sequences measured by viral load and CD4 counts. The winner was a very unlikely scientist: Former literature major and college dropout Chris Raimondi of Baltimore bear out 106 other teams by creating an algorithm that predicted changes in HIV infection severity with 78 percent accuracy (Jonas, 2014).

On a new website, CrowMed.com, patients who have not been able to get a firm diagnosis can post their symptoms online to crowdsource an answer, believing that there is “wisdom in the crowd”. Founded by technology entrepreneur Jared Heyman, CrowdMed lets users offer a cash reward that goes directly to the “medical detectives” –be they laypeople or physicians – who help solve their case. Medical detectives may suggest a diagnosis and bet points on others’ suggestions. Each diagnosis is treated as a stock with a share price that moves based on “demand” for the diagnosis. CrowMed uses an algorithm to calculate the probability of each diagnosis being correct according to betting behavior, ranks the diagnoses from most to least likely, and presents the patient with the top 3 to 6. Mr. Heyman says the idea isn’t to replace doctors, but to come up with a list of possibilities a doctor might not have considered (Landro, 2013). It’s a vision that falls in line with one of the current beliefs of the tech industry: that the right answers will inevitably bubble up if you can just collect enough opinions. And while it’s not clear that this actually gives results that on average are better than what you’d get from a few visits to specialists, it could theoretically attract insurance companies by being far cheaper (Brustein, 2014).

eHealth Initiative 2006A report on the use of Social Media to prevent behavioral risk factors associated with chronic diseasePublished November 2013http://assets.fiercemarkets.com/public/newsletter/fiercehealthit/ehisocialmedia.pdf

Bughin J., Chui M. & Manyka J. (2014) Ten IT-enabled business trends for the decade ahead.Mckinsey & Company. Retrieved from:https://moreheadstate.blackboard.com/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%

Jonas G., (2014) Science’s Amateur Hour.Newsweek Inc. Vol 162, Issue 16. Retrieved from:http://wwws.moreheadstate.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1517396330?accountid=12553

Landro L., (2013) The Informed patient: 5 High-Tech Fixes for Patients ---Health Advances Make It Easier for People to Learn Causes of Illness, Test Results and Cost of Care.Newsweek Inc. Vol 162, Issue 16. Retrieved from:Wall Street Journal, Eastern Edition, pages D1. Retrieved from:http://wwws.moreheadstate.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1470507342?accountid=12553

Brustein J., (2014) Can Crowdsourcing Your Symptoms Reveal What Ails You?Bloomberg.com. Articles Directory. Retrieved from:http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-03-13/can-crowdsourcing-your-symptoms-reveal-what-ails-you