How Health Care Reform Might Bring Health Care Information Technology Forward

Welcome to this installment of the Weekly Health Insurance News Roundup. This week we will be looking at an article that covers a very interesting topic. The article comes to us from empowher.com and is entitled, “Health Care Reform Will Accelerate Health 2.0.” This article cites a study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project in which it discusses how the Internet and websites (like this one) are helping people become more savvy in their quest for health insurance and information.

First off, the author of the article found out about this study on Twitter, which says something right there. According to the article, 74% of households now have Internet access, and people are using the Internet to supplant other sources of information they use to get health information, whether it’s from friends, family, or a health professional. The article also states that many people search for health insurance and health care information online not for themselves, but for a friend or family member. This shows an interesting trend in how more and more people are using the Internet for their health-related information.

One of the things people search for the most are reviews, of health care professionals, hospitals, health insurance companies and so on. They also search for user-generated content on medical maladies, diseases and so on. This shows that there is a hunger and a need for user-generated content regarding health care and health insurance. Sadly, the study shows that while people are clamoring for user-generated content, not as many users are actually generating it, as only between 4-6% of respondents said they were actually writing content about health care.

What does this mean? It could mean a lot of things. As the public and the government push for health care reform, technology will have to match the need for information that people will have regarding all these changes and updates. With services like Twitter and Facebook keeping us more and more informed, we can only hope that the amount of content generated by actual patients will eventually meet the demand, which will in turn help everyone stay informed on their health care and health insurance needs.