Tag: crowdsource

Truth on Call pays docs $10 to text and tweet

Truth On Call, a San Francisco start-up, is monetizing the quintessential Twitter behavior: throwing out a tough question to your followers and hoping someone in your crowd can come up with the answer.

It’s a behavior shared by bloggers, new moms and even health care professionals. When Truth on Call founders noticed that doctors were tweeting about perplexing cases and get responses from doctors they do not know, they were inspired to make it easier.

They’ve assembled a panel of physicians to virtually answer questions. Users can ask a question of one doc or an entire panel. Answers start at $50.

Doctors sign up to participate at Truth On Call’s Web site. The company verifies that the physician is registered with the federal database of doctors who can prescribe medicine and verifies identity by sending a text message to his or her cellphone. Doctors receive $10 for each question they answer, and Truth On Call will send the checks to their address or to a charity of their choosing.

Today, the service is aimed at a professional audience (journalists, financial analysts, pharmaceutical executives and doctors), but it will quickly be opened to patients and caregivers around the world. Soon, that second opinion you’ve been craving could come on your cell phone.

lhouseholder
Leigh Householder, VP/Managing Director of Innovation Strategy | March 9th, 2010 | 0 Comments

UCB joins PatientsLikeMe

After months of planning, UCB officially launched an epilepsy community on PatientsLikeMe last month. In the first two weeks, over 400 patients joined. Based on the growth of other communities, they expect thousands of patients to connect there over the next few months.

What is PatientsLikeMe?

PatientsLikeMe is part databank, part community. It has the most comprehensive content on certain mood and neurological disorders of any databank in history. And, it was all crowdsourced – entered by individual patients one visit at a time.

The site was started by two brothers – James Heywood and Benjamin Heywood – after watching their brother Benjamin’s long battle with ALS. They were frustrated that the doctors they saw has so few ALS patients and so narrow a perspective. They hoped that if they could bring enough people together, each entering their own specific medical experience – they could not only help these people with relatively rare life-changing conditions support one another, but also help them act as their own advocates in their treatment and their lives.

Why did UCB invest?

PatientsLikeMe is on-the-ground research with a wide-cross section of patients. People who record how they feel, what medication they take, and what they do on their own to improve their quality of life. UCB is hoping what it learns about epilepsy will help improve drug safety and lead to new advances in care.

UCB’s chief medical officer Iris Loew-Friedrich said: “We believe this community will be a source of information that will allow us to better understand people living with epilepsy and may help us design clinical programs that incorporate real-world patient needs and experiences in a measurable way.”

UCB has ambitious plans for the partnership and has outlined a number of research projects in the pipeline, including one that takes aim at the specter of adverse events – long the cause of pharma caution on any form of social networking.

Want to hear more from the founders of PLM?

Don’t miss this TED talk by Jamie Heywood. He goes deep on how and why the system works.

lhouseholder
Leigh Householder, VP/Managing Director of Innovation Strategy | February 5th, 2010 | 0 Comments

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