Together Health

This "circle of care" begins with a facebook application, but will expand to be a social network open to anyone, including non-facebook members. It is a social network to reveal and leverage one's health ecosystem to live well.

Users will document their general health issues, and those of their loved ones (parents, siblings, children, spouses) with which they have experience. Then users connect with others to discuss and share health concerns, information and results.

Imagine you are in the hospital with your sick child who has pneumonia. You've never had pneumonia and the treatments the doctors are suggesting are confusing. With Together Health you can find out which of your friends has had experience with children's pneumonia in the hospital. You can also find friends who have experience with that hospital's pediatric unit, even if they haven't had pneumonia.

There are also official user groups based on specific health concerns, like the asthma group, the peanut allergy group, etc. to promote support and knowledge sharing.

In addition, health professionals, including alternative practitioners can connect with user groups in their areas of expertise. First, they would subscribe as individuals with their own health profile, and secondly, they can alert the community that they have professional expertise.

The benefit is to share support in what can be a confusing and complex health situation. Get wisdom from a variety of human sources, including health professionals.

This is innovative because it mirrors how people actually seek health information to make critical decisions. It solves the challenge of knowing who knows what. Anonymous information on the web is good. But knowing real people who have looked at and used that information to make real decisions can provide deeper insight, and alleviate often scary medical decision-making. It's innovative because it puts a human face on what can seem like an inhumane system.