Paul Wallace (now Medical Director for Health & Productivity Programs at Kaiser Permanente and Chair of the IxCenter Board of Directors) closed out the first day of last week’s 7th Annual Ix Conference with some insights on how we can modernize health care effectively.

He noted that he came of age as a physician during what he termed “Health 0.0.” Although much of health care is now being practiced in a “Health 1.0″ mindset as information flows more freely, there is still a long way to go until we’ve reached the Health 2.0 goals of on-demand, 24/7 access to information that can be democratically created.

Paul pointed out that we need to figure out how to hold onto the close in-person relationships from 0.0, and build the information flow from 1.0 as we create the social networks and real-time information access of 2.0. The goal they all have in common is building trust–one of the most important elements in an ideal health care delivery system.

Ideally, the new tools of Health 2.0 will actually help us do a better job of meeting the demands of 0.0 by creating more efficient ways to allow for personalized health care. How can new technologies enhance our ability to take care of people one patient at a time?

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Engaging Consumers, Health 2.0 Space, Patient-Clinician Relationship, The New Health Care Consumer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.