How social networking and Web 2.0 technologies revolutionize health care, wellness, clinical medicine and biomedical research (Medicine 2.0)
In the past few years we have seen the rapid evolution of new tools and programming techniques collectively called "Web 2.0 tools", which facilitate the development of collaborative and user-friendly Web applications. Typically, the Web 2.0 is a term which refers to a) improved communication between people via social-networking technologies,b) improved communication between separate software applications ("mashups") via open Web standards for describing and accessing data, andc) improved Web interfaces that mimic the real-time responsiveness of desktop applications within a browser window. Semantic web applications (sometimes called Web 3.0) and 3D environments (Second Life) can also be seen as second generation Web technologies.
These technologies have led to a flurry of new applications and speculation on their potential to revolutionize health care and the entire spectrum of health and medicine - from consumer-led preventive medicine, home care, to clinical care. This coincides with a strong push towards personal health records, with major players such as Microsoft and Google entering the scene. High-profile takeovers and valuations of companies such as YouTube or Facebook also have led to a flurry of investment activities - Venture Capitalists are once again investing in Web start-ups, but much of the linguistics and hype is reminiscent of the Web 1.0 bubble in the late 90ies.
As the leading peer-reviewed journal in eHealth, JMIR, together with a number of sponsoring organizations, is currently preparing the first academic international "Medicine 2.0" (TM) conference in 2008.
This cutting edge conference will bring together academics and business leaders and is hoped to catalyze new collaborations between academia, health providers, and the private sector. We envision this to be an annual conference, with peer-reviewed contributions, panels, and invited speakers, focussing on "next generation medicine", which incorporates ideas of collaboration and consumer empowerment.
To celebrate the first Medicine 2.0 conference in 2008, JMIR will publish a "Medicine 2.0" Theme Issue focussing on Web 2.0 applications for health, health care, and the future of medicine. Submission deadline for full articles: February 15th, 2008.
Examples for topics that are within the scope of the theme issue as well as the conference include the following:
Collaborative Filtering and recommender technologies
Consumer empowerment
Personal health records and Web 2.0
New models of academic / scholarly publishing and peer review, e.g. what is the role of blogs and wikis?
New models of e-learning, patient education, medical training and continuing medical education
Youth and digital learning
Business models in a Web 2.0 environment: User-generated content is free - so who makes money how? What is the role of the private sector?
Developing and nurturing online communities for health
The nature and dynamics of social networks
Web 2.0 approaches for clinical practice, clinical research, quality monitoring, public health and biosurveillance
How patient - physicians relationship change based on Web 2.0 platforms
Virtual health care learning environments (web 3D: eg second health and the ALIVE project at U of Southern Queensland, Australia)
Use of Web 2.0 applications in health care and education (eg YouTube... UC Berkeley is the first US university to put lectures online via YouTube)
Semantic Web applications
Manuscripts must follow the JMIR Instructions for Authors. Note that JMIR is an Open Access journal and our regular publication fees apply (submission fee and - for non-institutional members - Article Processing Fee in case of acceptance).
To submit, please register as author and make sure to select the section "Special Theme Issue: Medicine 2.0" when you submit the paper.
For further information, please visit: http://www.jmir.org/ojs/index.php/jmir/announcement/view/12
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