Empowering information consumers in the online digital revolution

Empowering information consumers in the online digital revolution a focus group to explore new directions for Cochrane Dave Booker CC Web Team CECEM, Milano, May 2008

This session
Argument for the need for action
Identify new un-met needs for which Cochrane is best positioned to respond
Explore some concrete ideas
Test new communication channels

Empowering information consumers in the online digital revolution a focus group to explore new directions for Cochrane

Archie Cochrane, 1979: “It is surely a great criticism of our profession hat we have not organized a critical summary, by specialty, adapted periodically, of all relevant randomized controlled trials.”

Not a bad start …

Our mission statement: The Cochrane Collaboration is an international organisation that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about health care by preparing, maintaining and promoting the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions.

Logical extension?
All people
Should get appropriate healthcare
based on good evidence.
Should we say it explicitly ?

Do we envision a world in which healthcare decisions always imply filtering, consistently, for the best evidence, In all contexts?

Should Cochrane provide the evidence for such filters? …or also facilitate the techniques of filtering and promote the ideas of scientific inquiry to the public?

Why this question now?
Until recently, healthcare decisions were made by doctors, informed indirectly by databases of studies and reviews.
NOW decisions are made increasingly by healthcare users with Web 2.0 decision aids, WITHOUT good tools to filter for quality.

Web 2.what?
Web 1.0:
1994-2004
Static pages on the Web
Basic search
Little interactivity
Web 2.0
Since 2004
Interactive social media
Virtual reality
Information finds YOU
Mobile integration

10 years ago would you have imagined?
Google gives us on-target search results on nearly any topic, instantly, for free?
An online community exists for almost every health topic?
Doctors in one country will supervise surgery in another, online?

The new technology is USED

From desert to jungle
Death of the doctor?
Rise and fall of the ‘health’ portals
Rise of social media & search giants

Are we obsolete?

In 1992 did you imagine…
Half the world will own mobile phones?
GPS navigation devices?
1 in 5 new married couples will have met online?
Wikipedia will be printed in paper form and REPLACE the Britanica!

Zooming down to your house in Google Earth will let you see your old yellow Honda?
Your local library will own real estate in a ‘virtual world’, where you’ll go to get training in diapering your baby by an avatar speaking your language?
In 1992 did you imagine…

Web 2.0 is forcing change

Industries evolve:
Chaos and personal risk
Regulations, consumer protection
Standards, information liberation
Technical explosion

Travel industry
Huge (like medicine)
Service specialists (like physicians)
Information-rich
Consumer choice has direct implications

Chaos and risk: travel
Guides held the cards
Cheating was the rule

Chaos and risk: health
Physicians held the cards
Superstition and quackery

Regulation & consumer protection: travel
FAA, road signs, travel agency rules
Governments got involved

Self-regulation by medical societies
Government regulations weaker?
Is healthcare through this phase yet?
Regulation & consumer protection: health

Information liberation: travel
Travel literature spreads, goes online
Industry standards for databases make powerful search possible

Information liberation: health
From paper to Medline to PDAs
Guidelines and searching for studies
For consumers: the health portals

Technical explosion: travel
Comprehensive search: Google wins
Groups and blogs from the road
Photo-sharing sites (Flickr)
Google Maps and Google Earth
GPS

Technical explosion: health
GPS = WebMD, replacing doctors?
Personal records managements aids
For consumers: the health portals
?

Which developments are on the horizon?

Why should Cochrane care?
Brand
Data (lots of it)
People

What kind of people are we?

What’s our niche?

Cochrane.org/ideas

Empowering information consumers in the online digital revolution

by Cochrane.Collaboration on May 20, 2008

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

1 Embed 1

Statistics

Empowering information consumers in the online digital revolution — Webinar Transcript