{"id":528,"date":"2012-01-19T02:28:46","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T10:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=528"},"modified":"2013-09-02T13:05:46","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T20:05:46","slug":"review-of-healthtap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=528","title":{"rendered":"Review of HealthTap"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"As posted below, I joined HealthTap<\/a> a month ago, impressed with its vision of bringing real medical expertise to the public in a Yahoo Answers type format. \u00a0Since then I’ve participated actively. \u00a0As of today, I’ve answered 40 questions, and I’ve been thanked by 30 members \u2014 it’s tempting to call them patients, but they’re not. \u00a0Other physicians have agreed with my answers 60 times; I’ve agreed with some of theirs as well. \u00a0HealthTap claims I’ve helped over 4000 people; I have no idea how they calculate that. \u00a0I’ve earned 3600 points and 13 rather trivial “awards” by virtue of my activities, granting me “Level 7” status as a “Leading Medical Expert.”\u00a0 I haven’t yet used the mobile app or social networking links (i.e., to Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter), nor have I written “tips” or “health guides,” collections of answers and tips under a defined theme. \u00a0I also haven’t done much with the networking feature: I “follow” one other psychiatrist, and eight physicians follow me, which basically means they find out immediately if I post something (and their dedicated readers see it as well, like a Facebook “wall”).\u00a0\u00a0Today, HealthTap\u00a0reposted<\/a>\u00a0my\u00a0piece<\/a>\u00a0on support and insight in therapy to their blog.<\/p>\n

All in all, it’s been fun. \u00a0The awards, points, and “levels” are a bit silly, but they add some zing. \u00a0Answering questions in 400 characters isn’t as hard as I expected, and part of the fun is deciding what to say in so few words. \u00a0It’s also interesting to read what other MDs write, especially in fields other than mine. \u00a0And it does feel nice to volunteer simple answers to real questions people have.<\/p>\n

HealthTap democritizes medical knowledge, and brings the public closer to instant “ask your doctor” convenience than other health sites I’ve seen. \u00a0But looming over the enterprise is the reality that we are not “your” doctor. \u00a0The terms of service and legal disclaimers underscore that no doctor-patient relationship exists via the site, and that medical answers are intended to be generic, not for an individual. \u00a0But patients, I mean members, mostly ask first-person questions that address their personal medical concerns. \u00a0That’s the whole idea. \u00a0And very often we doctors reply that there are many possible diagnoses or etiologies to consider, but that only an in-person medical evaluation can sort them out.<\/p>\n

While HealthTap is an inspired effort, in my opinion it is hampered by the wrong model. \u00a0It tries to be a social networking site, when in reality it’s a knowledgebase. \u00a0Social networks derive value from interconnected communications among members; think Twitter and Facebook. \u00a0But people don’t chat about health issues on HealthTap, nor do they befriend others. \u00a0They seek answers to questions. \u00a0HealthTap’s social network model encourages asking the same questions over and over, since quick access to doctors is emphasized, not the fact that thousands of questions have already been answered. \u00a0For example, in my one month on the site several members have asked how to treat anxiety. \u00a0It’s a good generic question, but it’s already been answered a number of times \u2014 at least as well as one can answer such a broad question in 400 characters.<\/p>\n

HealthTap encourages doctors to create a Virtual Practice<\/a>\u00a0to “enhance your reputation, get new patients, and improve practice efficiency.” \u00a0I don’t quite see the utility, but\u00a0perhaps this works better for other specialties. \u00a0I can imagine a family physician pointing real patients to his or her HealthTap page for tips or guidelines about common complaints.<\/p>\n

I think HealthTap would serve its members better by embracing the knowledgebase model. \u00a0Make prior questions and associated answers more easily searchable, and give searching priority over asking anew. \u00a0If a user’s specific question is not found, it could be submitted to HealthTap staff for vetting. \u00a0Duplicate or incoherent questions could be rejected, grammar and spelling cleaned up, and meaningful tags added to facilitate retrieval later. \u00a0To encourage participation, doctors could still be recognized for answering quickly or often, or with answers colleagues agree with. \u00a0Thanks could still be offered by members for helpful answers, and everyone could still log into personalized pages as they do now.<\/p>\n

HealthTap is reportedly popular and growing rapidly. \u00a0HealthTap Express, the mobile app, is the #1 Staff Pick on Android Market<\/a>. \u00a0As long as people seek health information online, and as long as doctors volunteer to provide it, HealthTap’s future seems bright. \u00a0But it could be so much more if its architecture better matched its primary purpose. \u00a0Social networks are great for social networking. \u00a0Knowledgebases are great for organizing, storing, and retrieving knowledge. \u00a0The doctor-patient relationship, a small social network, cannot exist on HealthTap, but a great deal of medical knowledge already does. \u00a0Its organization and accessibility could be greatly enhanced without sacrificing the responsiveness and personalization that brings smiles<\/a> to the HealthTap team and its members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As posted below, I joined HealthTap a month ago, impressed with its vision of bringing real medical expertise to the public in a Yahoo Answers type format. Since then I’ve participated actively. As of today, I’ve answered 40 questions, and I’ve been thanked by 30 members \u2014 it’s tempting to call them patients, but they’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-medicalpsychiatric-education","tag-healthtap","odd"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":782,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions\/782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}