Over at the e-patients blog, John Grohol has some criticisms of information therapy (Ix) and Health 2.0, particularly with respect to the joint post that I did with Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya last week on this blog, The Health Care Blog, and the Health Affairs Blog. Grohol seems concerned that broadening the definition of Ix and Health 2.0 render them less meaningful.

It’s a fair criticism in many ways. In fact, that is why the Center for Information Therapy (IxCenter) and its IxAction Alliance have invested so much energy in developing formal definitions, which have been adopted by URAC for their disease management standards and integrated into the National Business Coalition on Health eValue8 purchaser RFI for health plans.

Moreover, that definition forms the core of the new proposed information prescription objective that has been proposed for HHS’s Healthy People 2020 objectives, which I discussed last week and on which you can voice your own opinions.

That said, there are reasons to be broader in some circumstances as well. Earlier semantic criticisms of Ix included a concern that the IxCenter was suggesting that information should be available “by prescription only.” We needed to make clear that nothing could be further from our goals and that we fully supported “over the counter” availability of information. (It’s worth noting that even though this was the general consensus of the IxCenter Board of Directors, its founding Chairman Don Kemper probably agrees more with the stricter definition than the revised one.)

However, information therapy has always included the three types of information prescriptions — clinician-prescribed, system-triggered, and consumer-prescribed — as was made clear in the Ix book published in 2002. The question is what constitutes consumer-prescribed Ix. Most certainly, it has always allowed for a prescription by a lay person who knows you best (e.g., spouse, friend) and someone in your peer group (e.g., a person with more experience with the same condition). The “self-prescribed” is where we have more controversy.

But the most important thing that separates Ix from “plain old” information is that it is targeted to a moment in care and tailored to someone’s individual needs. The question is: What is the best way to find that? The answer, I believe, depends greatly on the individual in need of the Ix. And that is why we try to be inclusive in our definition.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 10:32 am and is filed under Health 2.0 Space, Ix Definitions, Participatory Medicine, The Media and Information Therapy (Ix). 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.