By Jan Greene
I'm blogging live, because that's what bloggers do. Exciting, isn't it?
I'm sitting in a roomful of 1,000 people who are hearing about how innovations on the web are going to help people better understand their health, find providers, stay healthy and figure out their medical bills. This is a daunting task but it's nice that so many people are working on it. This conference had half as many people show up last year, and most of the folks here are entrepreneurs coming up with new ways to serve you, the consumer.
They're spending a lot of time trying to figure out what you want and whether web-based services can help. One of the big questions is how to find a doctor or hospital or other healthcare provider that you would like and trust. There are some services doing this (ratemds.com, Zagat, HealthGrades, etc.) but not many have had enough people comment to produce a reliable sense of what a given provider is like. It's also a little worrisome how these sites could potentially be manipulated either by someone with an ax to grind about a given provider or even by the provider him or herself.
Still, the web has amazing potential to give individuals a quick way to wade through the fog of marketing to get the quality and humane care that they seek. I'll report back if I find it here.