The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media Prepared for California HealthCare Foundation by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, M.A., M.H.S.A., THINK-Health April 2008 Acknowledgments For sharing their personal stories and professional insights with me and readers of this report, I thank: Jack Barrette, WEGOHealth; Eugene Barsky, University of British Columbia; Bonnie Becker, Yahoo! Health; Robert Coffield, Esquire, Flaherty, Sensabaugh & Bonasso; Beth Comstock, NBC Universal; Noah Elkin, Steak Media (formerly of iCrossing); Susannah Fox, Pew Internet & American Life Project; Dean Giustini, University of British Columbia; Bruce Grant, Digitas Health; Ben Heywood, PatientsLikeMe; Daniel Hoch, M.D., Harvard Medical School; Matthew Holt, Health 2.0 Conference and The Health Care Blog; Fard Johnmar, Envision Solutions; David Kibbe, M.D., American Association of Family Practice, Center for Health Information Technology; Dmitriy Kruglyak, Trusted.MD; Michelle Lee, WiserWiki/ Elsevier; Monique Levy, JupiterMedia; Jude O’Reilley, Trusera; Carolina Petrini, ComScore Networks; Sarah Radwanick, ComScore Networks; Meredith Abreu Ressi, Manhattan Research; Joshua Seidman, Center for Information Therapy; Scott Shreeve, M.D., Crossover Healthcare; Ted Smith, MedTrackAlert; Neal Sofian, Resolution Health; Chloe Stromberg, Forrester Research; Amy Tenderich, DiabetesMine; Debbie Weil, corporate blogging and social media consultant; and Matthew Zachary, I’m Too Young For This! Foundation. About the Author Jane Sarasohn-Kahn is a health economist and management consultant who works with stakeholder organizations at the intersection of health and technology across the health industry. She leads THINK-Health, a health care consultancy, and blogs at Health Populi (www.healthpopuli.com). About the Foundation The California HealthCare Foundation, based in Oakland, is an independent philanthropy committed to improving California’s health care delivery and financing systems. Formed in 1996, our goal is to ensure that all Californians have access to affordable, quality health care. For more information about CHCF, visit us online at www.chcf.org. ©2008 California HealthCare Foundation Contents 2 Foreword 3 I. Social Networks Come to Health 5 II. What Is Health 2.0? The Power of Collective Wisdom 1 1 III. The Business of Social Networks and Health 1 4 IV. What’s Next for Social Networks and Health? Health Ratings Platforms That Make Health Consumers and Clinicians Peers Knitting Communities Together Disruptions Through Collaborations The New Health Company, v 2.0 Going Mobile The New Patient Opinion Leader 1 7 Appendices: A: Portraits of Social Media Health Pioneers B: Glossary of Social Media Terms C: More Information on Social Media in Health 2 3 Endnotes Foreword When Steve Case founded America Online, it was a Web 1.0 world “ ommunity is the killer app in C in which users could search for and read information. The online environment is quickly evolving into what has been called Web 2.0, health care.” and the difference for health care consumers is transformational. — Steve Case, Revolution Health to the World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress, December 2007 Web 2.0 enables “regular” people — not just the technology- savvy — to create content online. Such user-generated content takes the form of photo-sharing, video-uploading, music-downloading, and personal blogging, among other activities supported by social networks. The technologies, called social media, that consumers are using in their daily lives for entertainment, education, and financial management are also a platform for consumers to use for health information and support. Social media on the Internet are empowering, engaging, and educating consumers and providers in health care. This movement, known as Health 2.0, can be defined as: the use of social software and its ability to promote collaboration between patients, their caregivers, medical professionals, and other stakeholders in health. Within the environment of Health 2.0, people with chronic health conditions are sharing their stories with each other, not just for emotional support, but for the clinical knowledge they gain from participating with “patients like me” in an online community. Doctors are meeting up online to share quandaries about challenging cases and solutions that work. Researchers are coming together with patients to learn about side effects in real-time to improve therapeutic regimens. This iHealthReport takes a close look at Health 2.0. Who is using it? How are they using it? What is the impact? How can organizations get involved? Finally we will look to the more distant horizon, where Health 3.0 will eventually unfold. — Jane Sarasohn-Kahn THINK-Health 2  |  C alifornia H ealth C are F oundation I. Social Networks Come to Health Americans use the Internet to help inform decisions in their daily lives — from getting government The Internet plays a central role information on Social Security to job-seeking or selling a car.1 Increasingly, consumers also rely on the Internet for help with in providing health information. their health care decisions. According to recent surveys, some It is also becoming a platform for 60 to 80 percent of Americans have used the Internet to find convening social networks and health information, and as of January 2008, the Internet rivaled physicians as the leading source for health information.2,3 creating health information. Figure 1. ources Used to Find or Access Health- and Wellness- S Related Information in the Past 12 Months PERCENTAGE OF ADULTS REFERENCING… Disease associations/ Support groups 7% Pharmaceutical companies 10% Someone else with the same condition 11% Nurse/ Nurse practitioner 15% Pharmacist 18% Television 19% Newspapers/ Magazines 22% Relatives/Friends/ Co-workers 29% Doctor 55% Internet 59% Source: iCrossing. How America Searches: Health and Wellness. January 2008 The sheer quantity of information on the Web raises its own problems. Jude O’Reilley, an expert in health information exchange online, puts it this way: “A common part of the consumer’s health experience is to face a health challenge, Google it, spend 20 minutes getting totally overwhelmed, and then do what they did in the 1980s: Call a friend and work through their offline social networks.” The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media  |  3 This was the impetus behind the emergence of others. These Web-based services can involve Web-based social networks in the area of health and chat, messaging, email, video, file-sharing, and medicine. The new Web sites facilitate the exchange discussion groups. of health information and personal stories in a way K Wikis enable a group of people to record, edit, that transcends both medical textbooks and chatting and verify knowledge on a particular subject with a friend on the phone — yet offers some of the collectively. benefits of both. Consumers are quickly adopting such social networks; one in three Americans used Together, these base technologies provide the some form of social media online for health in foundation for social networks in health known as 2007.3 “Health 2.0.” Even before the Internet became widely available, there was evidence that social networks had a positive influence on health. In 1979 a large-scale California study showed that people with the lowest levels of social contact had mortality rates two to four-and-a-half times greater than those with strong social networks.4 Since then, research has found that a stable and supportive social network improves health outcomes for people with a wide range of conditions from heart failure to post-partum depression.5,6 In addition, social networks have a palliative effect on preoperative pain and anxiety.7 The facilitation of social networks through the Internet has infinitely expanded the possibilities beyond the constraints of in-person, localized contacts. Users are linked into networks based on shared interests. Links include general sites, such as MySpace, or specific interest-based networks, such as the MySpace CURE DiABETES group. Other types of tools for online social networking in health include the following: K Blogs enable users to record text, graphics, and video and to share them with others. K Online forums allow people to post opinions on subjects of personal interest. K Podcasts help people create and share audio files. K Really Simple Syndication (RSS) rapidly disseminates new information. K Social network services use software to build online social networks for communities of people to share and explore their interests with 4  |  C alifornia H ealth C are F oundation II. What Is Health 2.0? The first generation of the Internet — Web 1.0  — has been described as the “read-only Web.”8 It allowed people “ roups are remarkably intelligent, G to search for information and to read it. The provider of the online information controlled the content. Web 2.0 allowed for and are often smarter than the interaction, which has led to users’ ability to create information. smartest people in them.” Users can post and share audio, graphics, text, and video online James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds through sites such as Last.fm, Flickr, Blogger, and YouTube, respectively. The Power of Collective Wisdom The more participants there are in a social network — the foundation of Health 2.0 — the more value they create. This is the phenomenon of positive network effects. Some have referred to it as harnessing collective intelligence. In his book The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki notes that “groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.”9 This is the underlying thesis of the wisdom of crowds: Groups don’t need to be led by the smartest people to be smart. When patients managing the same chronic condition share observations with each other, their collective wisdom can yield clinical insights well beyond the understanding of any single patient or physician. Similarly, when physicians share information with each other online, the results go well beyond the doctor’s lounge — the traditional locale for exchanging clinical experiences and insights. When the local in-person support group goes global — as is the case when patients and physicians share online — the results can be transformational. “It’s now possible to solicit and aggregate information from people all over the world and arrive at a collective decision with a few clicks of a mouse,” says Surowiecki. On the PatientsLikeMe Web site, for example, people from many countries convene to share personal information on drug dosages, side effects, and medical histories for multiple sclerosis (MS), as well as other conditions. The collective wisdom on this Web site may rival the body of information that any single medical school or pharmaceutical company has assembled in the field of MS. The wisdom of crowds does not resist expert opinion — only dependence on a single expert opinion. “Relying on a crowd The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media  |  5 rather than an individual improves your chances gets driven out. Just like Wikipedia, misinformation of finding information that you didn’t know was doesn’t remain ‘up’ for very long.” out there,” Surowiecki explains. That is especially relevant for people with a newly diagnosed rare This has also been the experience of Amy Tenderich, disease. They often find themselves relatively alone one of health social media’s pioneers. She has found in their geographic community, without in-person that her community, DiabetesMine, self-polices access to patients with the same illness, or a medical and self-corrects. She relates an incident in which a community with expertise in treating it. medical equipment company attempted to promote a new set of glucose meters in the guise of a public The phenomenon of the wisdom of crowds has service announcement. A group of DiabetesMine begun to change consumers’ relationships with community members quickly critiqued this ploy their traditional touchpoints in health: physicians, on the Web site. Says Tenderich, “you cannot get health plans, suppliers, and pharmacists. By sharing away with that sort of thing nowadays with the ideas, discussing symptoms, and debating treatment prevalence of social networking online. Patients can options together, all of these stakeholders gain call your bluff and discuss the issue with each other knowledge that can ultimately improve patient care. immediately.” She commended the company for responding on the site and becoming part of the Consumers value the health information they conversation. get through social media. According to the 2008 Edelman Trust Barometer, people tend to trust “a person like me” more than authority figures from Daniel Hoch, M.D. business, government, and media. Furthermore, Neurologist and believer in the wisdom of crowds social networkers — those people who are most likely Since 1994, Daniel Hoch, a Harvard professor of neurology, has noticed that his patients to share their opinions about companies with friends, with epilepsy meet up online at the BrainTalk colleagues, and the community-at-large — are also Communities, a site founded by John Lester at more likely to be more health-activated.10 Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Hoch observes that an online group like However, today’s consumer-generated content isn’t BrainTalk “is not only much smarter than any geared well to supporting decisions, according single patient, but is also smarter, or at least more to Jude O’Reilley of Trusera, an invitation-only comprehensive, than many physicians — even network of people looking for health information. many medical specialists.” “People mine through acres of message boards to get More recently, several of his patients have to actionable information. What they’re forced to directed his attention to an increase in EEG do manually is to work out two very hard problems: guided biofeedback to augment treatment of first, is this person like me; and second, is this person neurologic disorders. With their help, Dr. Hoch is about to embark on a review of this literature and credible? The process of building trust is laborious.” potentially even publish it, including several of the patients as authors. “Their motivation to explore Critics of social media in health warn that content the topic and their knowledge of the general provided by individuals could lead to adverse effects population’s perceptions about this technology has or even death. Fard Johnmar of Envision Solutions, been incredibly helpful and insightful,” says Hoch. a company active in social networks and health, argues against this. “The communities that are very active and have a lot of members tend to be self-correcting,” he says. “Bad health information 6  |  C alifornia H ealth C are F oundation Who Is Doing What? Social media broadly defined covers the online “Prosumers” are consumers who actively search for technologies and practices that people use to share health information, according to Bonnie Becker of opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with Yahoo! Health. She says that 80 percent of health each other. Within social media, the most common searchers seek information for themselves, while platforms used by online health consumers are 20 percent are caregivers. For cancer and Alzheimer’s, shown in Figure 3. the proportion of caregivers is higher. Figure 3. ocial Media Platforms, by Usage S Consumers don’t use just one source for health information online, says Becker. “People leverage on average five information sources per search scenario. Wikipedia 21% They don’t just go to Yahoo! Health, but to Mayo, Online forums/ 15% WebMD, and bloggers’ sites. Consumers reconfirm Message boards information all along the Web.” Social networks 6% Social networks for health vary greatly in size, but Video-sharing 5% the typical consumer has about 50 people in his or her monthly active social network, according to Blogs 4% Ted Smith of MedTrackAlert, a consumer health information company that provides information on Live chat rooms 4% the benefits and risks of prescription medications. Source: iCrossing. How America Searches: Health and Wellness. January 2008 Figure 2. nline Tools and Resources Used to O Locate Health Information Table 1. xamples of Health 2.0 Sites, by Social E Media Platform Drug advertisements 7% P latform E x amp les Wikis Wikipedia, FluWiki, WiserWiki Hospital/clinic sites 10% Blogs DiabetesMine, HealthMatters (Healthline), Pharmaceutical 10% WebMD company Government sites 13% Social OrganizedWisdom, PatientsLikeMe, networks DailyStrength, SecondLife, Sermo, Health-specific ReliefInSite, NursesRecommendDoctors, 15% search engines TheHealthCareScoop, MySpace, Facebook News sites 19% Video-sharing ICYou, YouTube Health plans 22% Online forums Yahoo! Groups, Revolution Health Groups, Google Health Groups, Groups@AOL, Disease/condition About Groups, iVillage 25% association sites Podcasts Johns Hopkins Medical Podcasts, NIH Social media 34% Podcasts, CDC Travelers Health, dLife podcasts for diabetes Health portals 46% General 67% search engines Source: iCrossing. How America Searches: Health and Wellness. January 2008 The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media  |  7 Among all online health searchers is a core of about Health data is as personal as information gets. Many 20 million who are influential and from whom consumers are wary to share health information other health consumers seek out advice. This cadre online, particularly those who haven’t used a credit of “patient opinion leaders” (POLs) are emerging in card for purchasing online and those who are fairly networks focused on cancer, diabetes, HIV, mental new to the online world. Other consumers, quite health, and many other chronic conditions.11 knowledgeable about the workings of search portals, ask, “Why should we consumers trust ‘you’ with our Why do consumers use social media? Table 2 lists health information when you already know so much reasons in descending order. Although emotional about us?” The concern is that many companies support is important, it is less so than finding out already have a great deal of power based on the what others say about a medication or treatment, amount of personal information they have about researching others’ knowledge and experiences, and peoples’ search patterns. Some fear that one of these learning how to manage a condition. companies could leverage this information in the future for purposes other than those consumers had Using Social Media in Health agreed on. Consumers are well ahead of other health stakeholders in adopting social media in health. The emergence of genetic information in health These early adopters have many lessons to share on care will ramp up privacy concerns, predicts Robert how to proceed in this new space. Coffield, a health lawyer. “As genetic information becomes more commonly used as a part of the Privacy concerns may prevent potential users health dataset and our health system shifts the from getting involved. When Google Health and focus toward predicting chronic disease, the stakes Microsoft announced plans to develop personal involved in the inappropriate use of data increase,” health records in 2007, some consumer advocates says Coffield. “Genetic information and data that voiced the concerns of consumers. can predict chronic disease would have substantial value in a variety of contexts outside of using it for health care.” Table 2. Reasons Online Health Information Seekers Used the Internet to Connect with Others P ercenta ge of see k ers To see what other consumers say about a medication or treatment 36% To research other consumers’ knowledge and experiences 31% To learn skills or get education that helps me manage a condition 27% To get emotional support 17% To build awareness around a disease or cause 15% To share my knowledge of and experiences with a medication or treatment 14% To share my knowledge of and experience with a health issue 14% To find consumers’ recommendations and opinions about hospitals and other treatment options 13% To find consumers’ recommendations and opinions about hospitals and other treatment centers 13% To find consumers’ recommendations and opinions about doctors 10% To feel I belong to a group or community 8% None of the above 22% Source: JupiterResearch. Online Health: Assessing the Risks and Opportunity of Social and One-to-One Media, 2007 8  |  C alifornia H ealth C are F oundation Trust between health consumers and social privacy regarding such information, and the extent networking sites grows with transparency and to which the courts might provide protection to this openness. However, people in search of health information will have a major impact on the future information and support are often willing to trade development and use of social information.” off aspects of their privacy in exchange for valuable services. Ultimately, consumers want and need to be Coffield cautions that employers could potentially able to control their level of interaction with the site. access employee’s health information on social This is a central operating principle in user-generated networks. As we move toward a decentralized model media. of health information and continuous access to information via social networking, there is concern The upsides to participation by organizations that employers could monitor such data and aren’t always clear. Potential users of social media interaction. Employment litigation claims often in health often can’t quantify in advance what the arise as a result of employers monitoring employees’ benefit of participation will be. Joshua Seidman of email traffic. Coffield warns, “You can gain a lot the Center for Information Therapy, a nonprofit of information about a person by reviewing the that promotes effective use of information among historical information found on MySpace and patients, believes that, over time, more people Facebook.” will adopt social media as a standard part of care processes. He says, “We’re creating ways for people to For pharmaceutical companies, there are concerns get what they need in a different way than they have about consumers’ ability to review materials online. been. This could be a hospital realizing it’s important Chloe Stromberg from Forrester Research raises this to incorporate social media into their Web marketing issue: “Say an activist posts an unbalanced view of strategy. For physicians, using social media can create your drug on Wikipedia. The pharma company new models for how primary care is delivered.” wants to modify it. This keeps their staff up at night” with concerns about fair balance–the FDA’s Measuring a clear return-on-investment requirement that drug companies communicate for organizations such as health plans and an accurate and fair assessment of risks as well as pharmaceutical companies that adopt social media benefits. in health often is not straightforward. Will it immediately generate new sales? Probably not. Other legal obstacles perceived by life science However, social media can benefit the company companies include the potential for adverse drug over the long term in a number of ways: integrating events to be reported on a site sponsored by the patient care and enabling continuity, enhancing company, and the risk of off-label drug promotion patients’ compliance with therapies, building on that site. goodwill in communities, providing useful health information to people who opt-in to receive it, and Organizational culture can impede adoption averting costs that would be incurred in more acute of social media in health. The large corporate settings. interests in health care, such as health plans, provider organizations, and large vendors for health Legal and regulatory barriers persist between information technology, have focused on “big iron.” consumers, employers, and suppliers to the As described by Dr. David Kibbe of the American industry. We are in the infancy of case law related Academy of Family Practice, big iron is the bias to the privacy of social network health information. toward centralized mainframe computing, so-called Coffield anticipates that, “in time, the courts will be because the computers were housed in room-sized looking at whether consumers have an expectation of The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media  |  9 metal boxes or frames. Big iron has often trumped other IT viewpoints in health care. Health 2.0 comes from an entirely different vantage point. “We have the World Wide Web,” Dr. Kibbe explains, “and it’s becoming more intelligent in searching. It’s more interactive. There is untold potential for what people might be able to do with self-management and self-care if people had the right information at the right time available to them.” Big iron’s centralized mentality doesn’t fit with social media. There is a corporate tradition of controlling ‘the message,’ but this is impossible in the social media milieu, points out Fard Johnmar of Envision Solutions. In social networks, users generate content. Furthermore, people are increasingly relying on their peers and less on institutions for health information.11 Johnmar believes the impact of the Internet on the exchange of health content is forcing the industry to re-examine its assumptions about communications. The engaged consumer is seeking an ongoing dialogue on health — not a one-way, 30-second broadcast TV spot. Health marketers must meet consumers where they live, which is increasingly online and in social networks. Organizations just entering social media in health will find a daunting array of choices — multiple channels, devices, and formats. Health marketers will need to master the integration of promotion between the “old media” (e.g., television and print) and the “new media” online. 10  |  C alifornia H ealth C are F oundation III. he Business of Social Networks T and Health Consumers are not keen to pay for content online because they are used to getting free access to a dizzying There is evidence that consumers will array of content. However, there is evidence that consumers will pay for content they perceive to be personally valuable. pay for content they perceive to be One example is The Biggest Loser club, associated with the NBC personally valuable. television program that features overweight participants in a real-life battle to lose weight. The online club, operated by health publishing company Rodale in conjunction with NBC, is funded through member subscriptions. As of March 2008, the club had more than 50,000 members paying $19.98 a month. In this early stage of social media in health, business models are evolving and adapting. The market is attracting a flurry of companies. Some are entrepreneurs backed by angel investors and, a few, with venture capital. “With a few exceptions, there hasn’t been a huge amount of venture funds thrown at Health 2.0,” Matthew Holt of The Health Care Blog and the Health 2.0 Conference acknowledges. “There isn’t irrational exuberance for the space among the investment community yet.” Some Health 2.0 entities are among the largest publicly traded companies on the New York Stock Exchange. The biggest players in the space by market capitalization include Google, Microsoft (with MSNHealth), WebMD, and Yahoo! Revolution Health, established by AOL founder Steve Case, is a privately held company building a network of Web sites and partnerships focused on helping consumers take control of their health care. Holt expects different business models to develop as the industry matures. Advertising. Advertising support from health companies, such as plans, providers, and medical device and pharmaceutical companies, seems to be a natural revenue source for Health 2.0 programs. However, consumers online may question their motivation in supporting the sites. There is already advertising from for-profit companies visible on blogs and patient-sponsored forums. Google AdSense reviews an individual’s searches and delivers ads that relate directly to that content. For a chronically ill patient, receiving these ads could be useful. Some patients do want to receive advertising and information “pushed” from trusted sources if they can control the flow of the ads. Targeted advertising by health care organizations is a process that, for example, Google The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media  |  11 will understand because of its knowledge about Information arbitrage. Sermo, which enables consumers’ search behavior. physicians to share insights with each other in a closed network, has a unique business model based For health bloggers who write about their own on the concept of “information arbitrage.” Sermo conditions, they must walk a fine line between defines information arbitrage as, “the opportunity accepting advertising and avoiding the appearance that arises when breaking medical insights intersect of “selling out” to corporate interests. There is with the demand for actionable, market-changing a tacit agreement between health bloggers and events in health care.” Sermo targets financial their readers to be responsible and support best services companies, government agencies, and health practices that honor the health of the consumer. At companies (especially pharmaceutical marketers), PatientsLikeMe, the core values are clearly stated: which pay a subscription fee in exchange for being Honor patients, be open, be transparent. able to post questions on the Sermo site. The subsidization of these clients allows Sermo to make Data aggregation, knowledge-gaining and the social network free to physician members. The -sharing. Where groups of people come together clients gain access to real-time knowledge about how to aggregate opinions and data, there will be a physicians are dealing with diseases, patient trends, valuable data stream collected. The value of these safety and public health issues, and virtually anything data can be monetized in a variety of ways. In the physicians comment about on the site. case of PatientsLikeMe, the data can be used (on a patient opt-in basis) for clinical trials and new Sponsorship. The evolution of online banking product development by life sciences and medical provides a useful analog for potential health device companies. In Sermo, an online physician organization sponsors of social media health sites. network where doctors convene to share opinions, Pioneers in online banking were initially drawn to companies targeting the physician market can the concept because of the red-tape and bureaucracy observe and aggregate data to better market to them. involved with regular banking. What they found is This is especially relevant for drug companies whose that consumers who embrace online banking have traditional detailing strategies are being blocked by greater satisfaction, generate positive word-of-mouth physicians who decline to take in-person meetings recommendations, and tend to buy more services with the pharma sales force. Therefore, consumers from the bank than offline customers.12 who engage with social media in health need to make an educated decision on how much personal The health field has followed suit. Blue Cross and information to share, and what their personal return Blue Shield of Minnesota’s The Health Care Scoop on sharing this information will be. (www.thehealthcarescoop.com) was launched in November 2007. With the tagline “Patient reviews Another aspect of aggregating data is the concept from people like you,” the Scoop is an early of intelligent networks. Because of the “wisdom example of a health plan willing to experiment in of crowds” phenomenon, networks can get better the unknown world of social media. As the plan as more people use them. Two examples are continues to monitor comments on the site, they AthenaHealth, which operates an insurance rules will be able to incorporate what they learn from their engine that improves as more clinicians use the customers into the development of new products. software; and MedBillManager, where consumers In the longer term, the hard return-on-investment enter the real pricing they were charged and, by could come from the online feedback that provides doing so, the site becomes more robust. real-time market research. 12  |  C alifornia H ealth C are F oundation Sponsorship of social media sites can help bond existing customers (whether patient, plan enrollee, or caregiver), bolster trust with the organization, and ultimately drive health product/service sales that benefit both the patient and the company. Social networks integrated in health care delivery. For stakeholders in patient care, social networks can facilitate the care integration that improves patients’ daily management of chronic conditions. Josh Seidman notes that social networks can tie into health management programs for a group of patients dealing with a chronic condition. For diabetes, targeted information can be pushed to patients about HbA1c tests along with cholesterol management support. Resolution Health is a company that monitors the care of health plan members to identify opportunities to improve quality and reduce cost. It integrates social networking into its interventions, develops personalized messages to health plan members, and helps clinicians to improve care. Private labeling. CarePages, part of the consumer- centered health company Revolution Health, offers online support communities created by patients and caregivers. The sites are used as an online rallying point for families and friends supporting a patient. CarePages offers hospitals the opportunity to brand these communities, which extends the offline hospital experience to patients online. By targeting families who are undergoing catastrophic events, the privately labeled CarePages enhance families’ relationships with the institution and can inspire positive word-of-mouth beyond these communities. The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media  |  13 IV. hat’s Next for Social Networks W and Health? The evolution of social media in health will be driven by the growing demand for transparency and openness. As As consumers take on increased health care costs approach 20 percent of the GDP by 2016, health care financing in the United States will be unsustainable in its responsibility for clinical and current form.13 Shining a light on the data by which payers and financial decisions in health, social consumers make purchasing decisions can help drive more rational, networks will be one of many cost-effective choices. platforms that will support sound As consumers take on increased responsibility for clinical and decision-making. financial decisions in health, social networks will be one of many platforms that will support sound decision-making. Many consumers are already ahead of the health organizations that serve them. How might health plans, providers, and suppliers catch up with consumers? Health Ratings The first generation of consumer health ratings consisted of “best hospital” and “best doctor” rankings in city magazines. For 18 years, U.S. News and World Report has published the “Best Hospitals” survey highlighting the country’s leading referral centers by medical specialty. Consumer Reports began offering information about “Best Buy Drugs” in 2004, comparing prescription drug brands against generics in a broad range of therapeutic categories. For nearly a decade, HealthGrades has provided online quality ratings on providers, physicians, and long term care to consumers, plans, and payers. The second generation of consumer health ratings is now materializing. An early entrant is Vitals (www.vitals.com), which combines consumer reviews, peer reviews, and empirical data on a doctor’s quality. One of Vitals’ strategic partners is Castle Connolly, which has been publishing America’s Top Doctors since 1991. New entrants into the ratings game are consumer-facing and —  trusted names including Angie’s List (known for home repair service ratings) and Zagat, the famed hospitality rating service. The immediacy of social networking will enable savvy online consumers to be wise about who is behind health ratings. 14  |  C alifornia H ealth C are F oundation Transparency and openness must be the operating relationships between providers, payers, suppliers, principles of these projects. and consumers. Platforms That Make Health The innumerable start-ups in social media/health Consumers and Clinicians Peers in early 2008 remind many analysts of the dot-com In addition to consumer-generated health irrational exuberance. “There are plenty of start-ups ratings, many consumers seek more sophisticated rushing into this space, hoping to profit,” notes information about care for a chronic or newly Dmitriy Kruglyak of Trusted.md. “We should diagnosed condition. A 2007 column in The New expect to see a lot of ‘noise’ and a success rate York Times titled “When the Patient Is a Googler” similar to the dot-com era. Many high-profile and pointedly demonstrated many physicians’ discomfort well-funded companies will bomb. Expect some with patients who enter the exam room armed with large and well-known companies and institutions computer-generated printouts of Medline, WebMD, to stumble in this changing world. What is certain and Google searches.14 In fact, some patients with is that Web 2.0 is highly disruptive to traditional rare conditions learn more about their malady than business models. On the other hand, some successes their internists or GPs. will emerge seemingly out of nowhere. Think Google in 2000.” Social networks such as Sermo can bring patients together with physicians online in peer-to-peer Established health care organizations have the relationships — a kind of open-source health care. opportunity to disrupt traditional business models Companies like AmericanWell facilitate interactive through collaborating with partners from outside conversations between patients and clinicians. Some of the health arena. In health, stakeholders are now payers now reimburse for such consults. coming together that never would have in the past. Social networks offer a wide and accepting tent Knitting Communities Together under which disparate parties can work together in Social networks in health are proliferating so targeted ways. Consider the Anthem/Zagat project, rapidly that there is a need for services that “knit” which has created a new online survey tool that will communities together to enable health consumers to allow consumers to share their experiences with their move seamlessly and efficiently through the networks physicians with others. without having to be a member of all the groups that pertain to their illness or interest. Open Social is a Physicians could also come together with a national set of common application programming interfaces retail clinic and launch a social network project to (APIs) for Web-based social network applications help consumers use online tools that enable better that was developed by Google. Open Social will continuity of care than the episodic clinic model. allow social networking sites such as MySpace and Large employers might link with a pharmaceutical Yahoo! to interact, ameliorating the problem of silos company to engage in a chronic health management of communities competing with each other. WEGO protocol enabled through social media. Health, a health information portal, aims to connect communities in this way. Another disruption could come from the sixth- largest company on the Fortune 500 list, General Disruptions Through Collaborations Electric. Within GE are health and content Collaborations between social media and health businesses that can be leveraged through media stakeholders could benefit patients in unforeseen outlets such as The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, ways and, at the same time, disrupt traditional and the company’s many local news outlets. In following its vision of a more informed, engaged The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media  |  15 health consumer, GE is planning health offerings Going Mobile that leverage across their media properties and their The social media/health convergence will enable health businesses such as the Centricity electronic personalization not only in terms of the messaging, medical record, diagnostic imaging, personalized but also for preferred modes of delivery and media. medicine, and others. The company also has plans The modes for participating in health social for online media including the Your Total Health networks won’t be just Web browsers; they will be social network site and Healthline networks, in portable, such as cell phones and PDAs. which NBC Universal has a financial stake. Cell phones are ubiquitous and are an obvious The New Health Company, v 2.0 technology for consumers to use in health social Web 2.0 tools may be daunting to traditional nets. Nearly eight in 10 of all adults and two thirds companies conscious of shareholder responsibilities of seniors have cell phones.16 and Wall Street quarter-to-quarter pressures. However, entrepreneurs are quite comfortable with Consumers are opting for a multi-platform world. the new media. This points to an opportunity to Social networks in health can capitalize on their start a de novo health care business that could disrupt preferences and engage with them in their daily existing business models in health financing and lives on a continuous basis. The ability to engage care. with consumers in this way is particularly useful for chronic disease management, where lifestyle Consider what a new health plan model could look behaviors can have a significant impact on a patient’s like using social media. The launch of Carol.com in wellness. This is the case with diabetes, obesity, January 2008 was a seminal market event. Built on migraine, mood disorders, and other conditions. Web 2.0 technologies, it promises to do for health care consumers, “what Travelocity did for airline The New Patient Opinion Leader tickets.”15 Its home, Minnesota, is a state known for Increasing numbers of people are reaching out health care experimentation and the early adoption to others for more than the kind of support they of HMOs in the 1960s. For its product launch, might have found in the CompuServe health Carol.com developed 350 health product “bundles” interest groups in the 1980s. They are finding offered by 30 providers in the state, including some practical solutions to chronic health challenges. of the highest-quality brands such as HealthPartners, Consumer-generated content in health has found Mayo Clinic, and Park Nicollet Health Services. a receptive audience in Web 2.0. Patient opinion This is, effectively, a direct-to-consumer health leaders have emerged in many disease areas. Just as care delivery model. Consumers can review health pharmaceutical companies recognize and reward services by provider and see their potential costs. It key opinion leaders for their knowledge of patients is too soon to know whether Carol.com will grow and prescriptions, the patient opinion leaders will into a full menu of services across all therapeutic become a key influence on other consumers and, categories. For now, this start-up represents a way increasingly, the organizations who serve them. to bring transparency and openness to health care consumers. 16  |  C alifornia H ealth C are F oundation V. Conclusion Web 3.0 and the Future of Health 2.0 As the Internet evolves into Web 2.0, it is natural for technology mavens to envision Web 3.0, otherwise known as the Semantic Web.17 The Semantic Web is an extension of the World Wide Web in which the semantics (meaning) of information and services available online is defined, enabling the Web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use that content. Tim Berners-Lee, the developer who invented the World Wide Web and who coined the term, explains its significance. “Most of the Web’s content today is designed for humans to read, not for computer programs to manipulate meaningfully. Computers can adeptly parse Web pages for layout and routine processing — here a header, there a link to another page — but in general, computers have no reliable way to process the semantics.” The computer does not know the meaning of the search terms. The realization of the Semantic Web would lead anyone searching for health information — clinician, consumer, caregiver — much closer to what they are seeking. The fullness realization of the semantic Web, however, is years away. In the ongoing journey that is Health 2.0, those people who choose to use social media for managing health and gaining support will find a growing array of tools and modalities — increasingly mobile ones. In the next few years, we will see countless social media projects focusing on specific diseases and sub-specialty areas, built by and for patients, caregivers, and providers. More programs will be devoted to personal health data, through applications that reside on commercial products like Microsoft Health Vault, Google Health, and others. Finally, the ongoing demands of a consumer- driven health marketplace will inspire innovation in applications that integrate clinical and financial information, Quicken-Health style. And ratings sites will grow in number and type. The proliferation of these health-oriented sites enabled through social media will inevitably lead to consolidation. Ultimately, the users of Health 2.0, through their collective wisdom, will determine whether Health 2.0 provides value to them in their daily lives. The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media  |  17 Appendix A: Portraits of Social Media Health Pioneers “ roviders and tool makers realize this is where patients live. To gain their respect, P you need to be part of the social media sphere.” — Amy Tenderich, DiabetesMine Disease-specific patient networks provide members with an invaluable type of around-the-clock support. Richard Rockefeller, President of the Health Commons Institute, has called it the “chicken soup of the Internet.” The “cooks” can be found any hour of the day in Facebook, where more than 500 groups focused on diabetes meet; FLickR, where there are nearly 2,000 photos posted on chemotherapy; and YouTube, where about 36,000 pages are devoted to some aspect of surgery. The following brief portraits illustrate how social media are meeting peoples’ information and support needs in different, always organic, and often surprising, ways. There are hundreds of examples of pioneers whose early adoption of social media in health live online. These examples are just a sampling of the range of experiences and lessons learned in the first wave of social media and health. Social Network-Health Pioneer Fortunately, Tenderich’s husband had attended a conference on social media in the early days of Amy Tenderich, Founder blogging. He told her, “You should start a blog about DiabetesMine diabetes.” Social media: blog That was the impetus behind DiabetesMine. Within Target audience: iabetics, caregivers, providers, d four months of launching the site, Tenderich was payers, industry featured as a patient blogger in the Wall Street Journal’s Two things about Amy Tenderich positioned her to be “Informed Patient” column. She describes her following a health social networking pioneer. She was a practicing as “interactive and passionate. It’s not about the page journalist in the information technology industry views alone, but the amount of conversation, which for many years, and she was diagnosed with Type 1 shows the level of people’s engagement. The more diabetes five months after her third child was born in personal posts get more comments.” 2003. The users of social network health sites, says Tenderich, Like most people, Tenderich hadn’t known that adults “are more than readers — these are community could get Type 1 diabetes, and the doctors who treated members who you interact with. People are intimate her in the hospital didn’t seem to know much about in a way they never would be on a site like WebMD, it. “I felt like the only person on the planet to get the for example, which offers great information but feels juvenile disease at this late age. After the diagnosis, I impersonal. You might look there, but you will find sat on the couch for a day and cried. Then I got off the the real-life information on a more targeted site.” If couch and figured this thing out. The first thing I did you want to find out whether a particular drug really was search on the Internet. When it came to reach out makes people nauseous, “you want to ask other patients to people with diabetes there was nothing that felt real directly.” or personal. There wasn’t any place for patients.” 18  |  C alifornia H ealth C are F oundation In fact, Tenderich believes that the big players such as “We find that the ‘prosumer,’ the expert consumer, is WebMD and Revolution Health are “getting a run for most attracted to this concept,” says Barrette. These their money by the numerous smaller, more targeted users are past the point where Google or a general health sites online. People want content very specific portal can help them. “We’re building pages about to their condition or situation, so they spend more general health topics, but digging deeper into, for quality, interactive time on blogs and social networks,” example, Type 2 diabetes and diet among African- says Tenderich. Americans, using videos, tools, and content. We’re micro-segmenting the information. We’re not going For the first few years, Tenderich did not accept to have 1.6 million results like Google, but in-depth advertising on her site, but has now begun to accept content to help our community members get to the sponsors that “fit with the mission and vision of the best content quickly.” site.” She notes that “It’s a balancing act because, to me, the reason some sites haven’t done well is that they’re He adds, “Where the genuine conversation is, that’s too big, too commercial, and appear too much about where the teachable moment is.” making money. I think of my site as pioneering and experimental. I always want to keep DiabetesMine’s grassroots feel.” Finding a Space for Young Adults with Cancer Micro-Segmenting for a Deeper Matthew Zachary, CEO and Founder Conversation I’m Too Young for This! Foundation Jack Barrette, CEO and Founder Social media: blogs, forums, social network WEGO Health Target audience: nder-40 cancer patients and u Social media: social/health network, Wiki caregivers Target audience: prosumers” looking to manage “ their health During his senior year at Binghamton University, Matthew Zachary noticed that his left hand had a “We want this to be a movement more than a Web pins-and-needles sensation. This was not a welcome site,” Jack Barrette says of his online community, symptom for a concert pianist in the midst of WEGO Health. “We have a passion to help each organizing theatrical productions. Soon afterward, other.” Zachary was diagnosed with a rare form of pediatric brain cancer called medulloblastoma. WEGO Health is an interactive, constantly updated clearinghouse for online health information. It The 21-year-old found himself caught between creates what Barrette calls “expert-supported health the worlds of pediatric oncology and adult communities.” The experts are health and wellness cancer. “Pediatricians are not used to speaking professionals who cover a broad range of health to their patients since they’re usually little kids,” conditions. WEGO Health also solicits contributions says Zachary. “It was socially awkward to have from people online and brings the information conversations with these providers. The institutions from experts and consumers together, continually were focused on treatment and not quality of life. evaluating and ranking the information for each I didn’t know anyone my age with cancer and was page. It’s a kind of health information democracy: terribly isolated.” “Everyone has a stake, everyone can join in,” the site invites. But Zachary rehabilitated himself enough to hike the Grand Canyon with friends, and it made a great difference in his outlook. “By hiking the Grand The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media  |  19 Canyon, I realized I could do anything,” he says. “I An Ongoing, Live Outcome Study was not afraid of dying anymore.” Ben Heywood, CEO PatientsLikeMe After honing his skills in design, marketing, and IT, Zachary founded the I’m Too Young For This! Social media: social/health network, online forum Cancer Foundation (i[2]y). It is the first national Target audience: atients with ALS, MS, Parkinson’s p cancer advocacy, research, and support organization Disease, HIV/AIDS; caregivers, working exclusively on behalf of survivors under 40. providers, researchers Three weeks after i[2]y’s launch, the New York Times “What’s really exciting is what happens when health wrote about the Web site. This was followed by data gets shared in an open community,” Ben coverage in the Washington Post, Newsweek, and a Heywood enthuses about PatientsLikeMe. “Our host of other national publications. TIME magazine community breaks down walls of data silos. Here, included the site in its Best 50 Web sites for 2007. patients are fundamentally in control of their data.” Since then, Zachary was appointed to the Google Health Advisory Council. The foundation is now PatientsLikeMe, a social network of people with Lou linked to oncology providers at 300 cancer centers in Gehrig’s disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or nine countries. ALS) and multiple sclerosis (MS), along with other health conditions. People share very personal data Zachary’s site brings together cancer advocacy, a on prescription drug histories, health conditions, place for young survivors to convene and organize, side effects, what works and what doesn’t work. The music, commerce, and information. He describes community first launched for people with ALS in his business model this way: “We have an open March 2006. A year later, PatientsLikeMe added MS source model. We’re free, but we bring you to other and Parkinson’s disease communities. resources that are also free.” There are countless little-known sites that can be helpful to young cancer PatientsLikeMe has amassed a substantial body of survivers, says Zachary, and “We’re going to tell you research that can advance knowledge about these about it.” conditions. The community is now sufficiently large that its patient-reported dataset has been presented Zachary credits social networking for enabling him at scientific meetings and used in peer-reviewed to bring “the cause of cancer-survivors-under-40 to research studies. the masses. There are over 1 million young adults with cancer in this country. They’re part of the larger Heywood shares a typical example of someone youth culture movement.” He believes that the who recently joined PatientsLikeMe. “Joe” had leg cancer “establishment” is not helping anymore. His spasticity, a common symptom of MS, which he goal is to “make i[2]y the relevant group for the next had tried to manage for ten years. A decade ago, 30 years.” Joe’s doctor prescribed a low dose of Baclofen, a muscle relaxant, insisting that a higher dose would cause problems. Joe had no way to verify the doctor’s claim until he joined PatientsLikeMe and learned that people in the community are taking up to 10 times the dosage prescribed for him. As a result, Joe asked to have his dosage increased and his condition improved. 20  |  C alifornia H ealth C are F oundation PatientsLikeMe has users from over 40 countries. Its push,” he says. “We’re looking at how to integrate business model is innovative. The site does does not the messages and the media” to personalize them in accept advertising. However, says Heywood, “We’re ways that move people to change health behavior. trying to work with pharma and medical device He and his partner, Dan Newton, merged their companies to utilize our data through permission- social networking health company NewSof into based access to patients to improve the way they use Resolution Health in October 2007. There, they and develop treatments.” work with clients to bring the lessons of social networking to health plans, employers, and other The underlying purpose of the site is to lead to the health stakeholders. best health care. Heywood calls PatientsLikeMe “an ongoing, live outcome study. We hope to find the “I want all of this to be completely seamless —  patients in which the treatments work best.” whether pushed to you in print, via phone coach, or online,” says Sofian, stressing that no single one of these approaches is a solution in itself. “Ultimately, Changing Health Behavior all of the messages should reside where the patient Neal Sofian, Director, Behavioral Interventions can see all of the interventions and data.” Resolution Health Social media: social networks Target audience: ealth plans, employers, providers, h consumers A pioneer in innovative approaches to health for two decades, Neal Sofian, says “It’s so obvious that people learn through the experience of other people.” He started one of the first social networking programs in 1999, focused on cancer. Previously, he founded an innovative phone coaching health service, the Free & Clear Smoking Cessation Program. “Phone counseling is a great thing,” Sofian found, but, “there is a real tyranny in that a minute is a minute is a minute. How can you make a minute more than a minute? Through social networking.” So he created a network where a coach worked with a group of 20 smokers who supported each other. Sofian calculates this approach led to each coach being able to turn “one minute into 20.” Since then, he has worked with a range of organizations focused on changing peoples’ health behavior. “Messages are no better than their ability to be acted on,” he warns. “It’s the behavior, stupid!” Sofian is attempting to make the messaging more interactive. “Right now, most of what we do is The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media  |  21 Appendix B. Glossary of Social Media Terms Blog: Short for “Web log,” an online journal consisting of postings. Blogs often link to other Web sites and blog posts, and allow readers to comment on the original post, which enables ongoing discussions. Podcast: A digital recording of a broadcast made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio or video player. The word originally derived from a combination of “broadcasting” and “iPod.” RSS (really simple syndication or rich site summary): A family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts. An RSS document (which is called a “feed” or “web feed” or “channel”) contains either a summary of content from an associated Web site or the full text. Social media: A set of Internet tools that enable a group of people with common interests to connect with one another to learn, play, work, organize, and socialize.  User-generated content (UGC): Also known as consumer-generated media (CGM) and user-created content (UCC), the term refers to various kinds of media content that are produced by end-users. Web 1.0: Refers to the World Wide Web during its first phase of operation. Used to contrast the early era of the Web before blogs, social networks, and wikis —  which are part of Web 2.0. Web 2.0: An umbrella term for the second wave of the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 is not a specific technology but refers to the paradigm shift of user-generated content and thin client computing (i.e., data and applications stored on Web servers, where the user has access from any computer via a Web browser). Wiki: A Web site or online resource that allows users to add and edit content collectively. Wikipedia: A wiki that is a free content encyclopedia written collaboratively by contributors. 22  |  C alifornia H ealth C are F oundation Appendix C: More Information on Social Media in Health The market for social media in health is burgeoning. There are countless sources of information in the field. This very short list includes some of the most useful and sustained sites. Health 2.0 Background The Assertive Cancer Patient Health 2.0 article in The Economist www.assertivepatient.com www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm? story_id=9719054 Podcasts in Health Johns Hopkins Medical Podcasts Health 2.0 Conference www.hopkinsmedicine.org/mediaII/ health2con.com Podcastsinstructions.html Health 2.0 definition by Scott Shreeve, MD New York Times Health Podcasts scottshreeve.blogspot.com/2007/01/healthcare-20- www.nytimes.com/ref/multimedia/podcasts.html definition.html Podcast Health on HIV/AIDS Health 2.0 Wiki www.podcasthealth.com health20.org/wiki/Main_Page Portal for Health Podcasts from the U.S. Government Health Social Networks (CDC, CMS, NIH, etc.) Daily Strength www.usa.gov/Topics/Reference_Shelf/Libraries/ www.dailystrength.com Podcasts/Health.shtml#vgn-health-podcasts-vgn Organized Wisdom Virtual Worlds: discussion on Second Life’s role in www.organizedwisdom.com physical and mental health, Voices in the Family, Dr. Dan Gottlieb, February 2008 PatientsLikeMe www.whyy.org/91FM/voices200802.html www.patientslikeme.com Many other podcasts are available via iTunes Health Wikis www.itunes.com Ask Dr. Wiki askdrwiki.com/mediawiki/index.php?title= Video-Sharing in Health Physician_Medical_Wiki Cleveland Clinic on Google Video www.clevelandclinic.org/healthedge/Content/ Clinfo Wiki, on health information technology Videocasts.aspx www.informatics-review.com/wiki/index.php/ Main_Page icYou www.icyou.com David Rothman’s list of medical wikis davidrothman.net/list-of-medical-wikis/ YouTube (www.youtube.com) hosts thousands of health-related videos on a broad range of health FluWiki topics. The site was viewed as a site of health www.fluwikie.com mis-information in a December 2007 commentary Health, in Wikipedia in the Journal of the American Medical Association.19 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health Many social networking sites, such as iVillage (www.ivillage.com) and TauMed Patient Blogs (www.taumed.com), enable video-sharing for health Diabetes Mine and other purposes. www.diabetesmine.com Prostate-Help prostate-help.blogs.com/prostatehelp The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Online Social Media  |  23 Endnotes 1. Estabrook L., Witt E., Rainie L. Pew Internet & 13. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. National American Life Project. Information Searches that Solve Health Expenditure Projections 2006 – 2016. Problems. December 30, 2007. www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/03_ www.pewInternet.org/PPF/r/231/report_display.asp NationalHealthAccountsProjected.asp#TopOfPage 2. Fox S. Online Health Search 2006: Most Internet Users 14. Haig S. “When the Patient Is a Googler.” Time. Start at a Search Engine when Looking for Health November 8, 2007. www.time.com/time/health/ Information Online. Pew Internet & American Life article/0,8599,1681838,00.html Project. October 29, 2006. 15. Yee C.M. “Web Site May Spark Change in Medical 3. iCrossing. How America Searches: Health and Wellness. Economics.” Minneapolis Star-Tribune. January 27, January 2008. 2008. www.startribune.com/business/14455922.html 4. Berkman L.F. and Syme S.L. “Social Networks, Host 16. Rainie, L. and Keeter S. How Americans Use their Cell Resistance, and Mortality: A Nine-Year Follow-up Study Phones. Pew Internet & American Life Project. April 3, of Alameda County Residents.” American Journal of 2006. Epidemology. 109:186 – 204, 1979. 17. O’Reilley T. What Is Web 2.0? 5. 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Manhattan Research, Cybercitizen Health 7.0. Advertising. MedTrackAlert, October 2007. www.manhattanresearch.com/files/PRESS/Cybercitizen_ Health_v7_110107.pdf 12. ForeSee Results and Forbes.com. Online Banking Study: How Online Customer Satisfactoin Drives Share of Wallet, Word of Mouth and Loyalty. Spring 2007. Prepared by the American Customer Satisfaction Index. 24  |  C alifornia H ealth C are F oundation C A L I FOR N I A H EALTH C ARE F OU NDATION 1438 Webster Street, Suite 400 Oakland, CA 94612 tel: 510.238.1040 fax: 510.238.1388 www.chcf.org