Health 2.0

Health 2.0 (as well as the closely related concept of Medicine 2.0) are terms representing the possibilities between health care, eHealth and Web 2.0, and has come into use after a recent spate of articles in newspapers, and by Physicians and Medical Librarians. A concise definition of Health 2.0 is the use of a specific set of Web tools (blogs, Podcasts, tagging, search, wikis, etc) by actors in health care including doctors, patients, and scientists, using principles of open source and generation of content by users, and the power of networks in order to personalize health care, collaborate, and promote health education. A possible explanation for the reason that Health has generated its own "2.0" term are its applications across health care in general, and in particular it potential in public health promotion. One author describes the potential as "limitless.". Another author interprets the "2.0" moniker as a "second generation medicine": "There is however also a broader idea behind Medicine 2.0 or “second generation medicine”: the notion that healthcare systems need to move away from hospital-based medicine, focus on promoting health, provide healthcare in people's own homes, and empower consumers to take responsibility for their own health". This is facilitated by emerging technologies, for example, a "combination of two trends—Personal Health Records combined with social networking — may lead to a powerful new generation of health applications, where people share parts of their electronic health records with other consumers and “crowdsource” the collective wisdom of other patients and professionals."