Health Information: What Sources Do People Trust?

Finding accurate and reliable health information has become more confusing for patients than ever before. By examining where patients are getting their information — for example, from trained healthcare professionals or their peers — and their ability to determine the most reliable sources can help the industry and patients better understand the importance of providing… Continue reading Health Information: What Sources Do People Trust?

“You’re the only expert of your own life and your own body.” Author Nilofer Merchant shares why she featured PatientsLikeMe in her new book

“Onlyness. It’s not a word in the English dictionary, but it should be.” We sat down with author, TED Talk speaker and innovator Nilofer Merchant to talk about her new book The Power of Onlyness, and the role that the PatientsLikeMe story plays in it. Advocating for “Onlyness” Nilofer has been championing the idea of “Onlyness”… Continue reading “You’re the only expert of your own life and your own body.” Author Nilofer Merchant shares why she featured PatientsLikeMe in her new book

PatientsLikeMe Featured on Bloomberg TV

On October 9th, Bloomberg TV aired a four-and-a-half minute “Innovators” segment profiling PatientsLikeMe’s journey as company.  Filmed partially in our office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the piece features PatientsLikeMe Co-Founder and Chairman Jamie Heywood as well as Ed Sikov, a PatientsLikeMe member with Parkinson’s disease.  Our thanks go to Bloomberg’s Nicole Lapin for her in-depth coverage… Continue reading PatientsLikeMe Featured on Bloomberg TV

The Importance of Open Access: An Interview with Patient Advocate Graham Steel

A native of Glasgow, Scotland, Graham Steel is a longtime “Guest Researcher Member” of PatientsLikeMe.  Following the death of his brother Richard at the age of 33 from a rare condition known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), Graham became involved in patient advocacy work, and most recently, in lobbying for open access to published scientific… Continue reading The Importance of Open Access: An Interview with Patient Advocate Graham Steel

Rare Diseases: Well-Done Online

There are rare diseases, and there are rare diseases. Here at PatientsLikeMe our first community was built for patients with ALS (estimated US Prevalence: 30,000), and in common with our other neurological communities there is a familiar list of challenges: low public awareness, little funding for research, and a lack of adequate treatments. However, over… Continue reading Rare Diseases: Well-Done Online

10,000 MS Patients and Going Strong…

Today, the PatientsLikeMe Multiple Sclerosis (MS) community welcomed its 10,000th patient member! As we end 2008, more than 10,000 patients in our community are coming together to share their life experiences on PatientsLikeMe. How much experience is that? Try more than 32,000 YEARS of collective experience with MS. More members than ever are sharing in-depth… Continue reading 10,000 MS Patients and Going Strong…

Health 2.0: Where do we go from here?

A few nights ago, I was honored to give a keynote at the second Health 2.0 Northeast conference held right here in our Cambridge, MA backyard.  It’s exciting to see old friends and new emerging start-ups coming together to try and make a dent in the $2 trillion industry that is healthcare in the U.S. … Continue reading Health 2.0: Where do we go from here?

Living Positive with PatientsLikeMe (AIDS Walk Chicago)

You’ve spotted us again!  This weekend, PatientsLikeMe was a proud sponsor of the AIDS Walk/Run at Grant Park in Chicago on September 20, 2008.  The event, benefiting the AIDS Foundation of Chicago and 70 other local organizations, brought together more than 7,000 people on this warm, sunny day to show their support in the fight… Continue reading Living Positive with PatientsLikeMe (AIDS Walk Chicago)

Bringing you Medicine 2.0

Last week, PatientsLikeMe presented a keynote address at the inaugural Medicine 2.0 Congress in Toronto, Canada in front of 200 researchers from 20 countries. A new, annual international conference on Web 2.0 (social web) applications in health and medicine, this year’s event was centered around the theme: “Building Virtual Communities and Social Networking Applications for… Continue reading Bringing you Medicine 2.0