QUICKIE: My(Medical)Space: Social Networks, Blogs Turn To Health Care

This announcement came from iHealthBeat, the e-zine of the California Health Foundation: My(Medical)Space: Social Networks, Blogs Turn To Health Care. I found this via a post in Matthew Holt's THCB.  In part it's about The Medical Blog Network founder Dmitriy Kruglyak's new venture, Trusted.MD.

One of the early efforts to create an online community for all stakeholders is Trusted.MD. Dmitriy Kruglyak of The Medical Blog Network is working to develop Trusted.MD as a social network for health care. According to Kruglyak, the site will:

• Provide private spaces for health care consumer and professionals;
• Offer a network of "trust-based relationships"; and
• Link health care consumers, professionals and organizations.

Kruglyak, who said Trusted.MD will be "the MySpace of health care," also compared Trusted.MD to Switzerland, saying it will provide a neutral space for consumers, professionals and organizations alike. The site will be rolled out in a phased approach, and eventually it will replace the Medical Blog Network.

To paraphrase Alice B. Toklas' comment about Oakland CA back in the early 1900's, "There's no there there" at the moment. It's a site under construction. I'm going to be watching it closely, though. I expect it will be a very exciting venture once it gets underway, and I plan to be as involved as I can in making it a success.

The article also mentions Sermo, a social networking site run "by physicians, for physicians." It also sounds intruguing:

In addition to blogs, online social networks have the potential to transform the way patients, providers and insurers interact. Rubel noted the example of Sermo, a no-cost online community created by physicians for physicians that launched in October. The site facilitates information exchange among physicians, which could accelerate research and adoption of best practices.

It's an exciting time to have a presence on the Web.

Comments

[kristine]

Thanks for the article. I did not know about these two social networks. WebMD survived Web 1.0, so it will be very interesting to see who the champion players will be for Web 2.0.