Health 2.0 could shock the system

[Commentary] Can the grassroots Internet do for health what it is doing for politics? America's political culture has been revitalized in recent years as citizens have become newly vocal and engaged, in large part through the web. The Internet gives all of us the ability to get involved, whether by signing up to a presidential candidate's mailing list, participating in local politics through blogs or even just sharing photos and interests on social networking sites. Whatever happens with President Barack Obama's plans for healthcare reform, the same thing is starting to happen in the field of health itself - that is, that happy state in which you do not need much from the medical system. Indeed, healthcare is ripe for the kind of revolution we are having in politics, due both to a backlash against the dysfunctionality of the old system and to the power that the Internet gives people to collect information and organize themselves. Real improvement in the healthcare system depends only partly on who pays. It also has to do with who makes the choices - and whether they have enough information and incentives to do so wisely. In the end, all politics is local. And health begins at home.

[The writer is involved with a number of "health 2.0" organizations, including 23andMe, PatientsLikeMe, Patients-KnowBest, ReliefInsite, Keas, Epernicus, HealthDataRights.org and the Personal Genome Project, for which she has published her entire genome online.]