I had the opportunity to nab a few golden moments with one of Health 2.0’s most ‘visible’ online evangelist, Jennifer McCabe Gorman last spring.

In Part 1 of 3 Jennifer shares the story of how the Health 2.0 movement got started and who many recognize the originators to be.

Part 2 of 3 addresses the value of Health Information Technology (HIT), especially to people like us seeking to better manage diabetes and cut medical costs all while encouraging the medical care system to look to more interactive ways to provide quality health care.

And in Part 3 Jennifer shares her own remarkable life changing story that came as a result of a horrific car accident in which she was the driver, and how she looked to the internet to help her get through it all.

All very well worth the read from both informational and inspirational standpoints.
—Nedrra Lanakila, SugarStats’ Executive Vice President and Director of Communications.

Nedrra (N): I’m so glad we’re talking! You and several others are doing some ground breaking work in the area of Health 2.0.

For those of us who know very little about that arena, how about we start with some basic info?

Jennifer McCabe Gorman (JMG): it’s awesome to be ‘talking’ to you as always.

N: I know that there’s a presidential mandate for medical records to be addressed/stored electronically. Is that where Health 2.0 got birthed?

JMG: Health 2.0 actually got started not from that presidential mandate specifically, but both the Health 2.0 movement and the mandate are built around the assumption that health information technology (HIT) can help improve patient care and reduce costs.

Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya are the founders of what most of us think of as the Health 2.0 movement, which got started way back in 2006 hahah (it’s a very young movement, but old by ‘internet’ development standards).

THEY actually used the web-based terminology adopted by O’Reilly to describe Web 2.0, kind of the second wave of internet based development: online communties developing and growing rather than just people posting or searching for information and O’Reilly actually used bits and pieces from Tim Berners- Lee, but that’s a story for another day.

N: 2006 is still young to me! SugarStats attended that first Health2.0 conference in San Francisco. How many participants were there and how has it changed or grown since then?

JMG: Great question. That first conference really kicked things off. There were I believe (I’ll have to check the figures) about 200 people at the first event – and the last Spring Fling had 350, next Health 2.0 User Generated Conference is planned for Fall 2008 –October 22nd and 23rd – in San Francisco will have 1,000 so it’s really booming!

The neatest thing about the Health 2.0 Conference is the buzz. There’s just this energy of people wanting to see what’s changing in healthcare, where we’re going, how we’re using the internet to live well.

And that’s infectious at every level. You can feel it in the hallways and through the hotel.

N: So how did you get involved in Health 2.0?

JMG: I knew healthcare was ‘it’ for me. Thought maybe I’d go to med school.

But then I realized I still, despite everything, was amazed by ALL aspects of the hospital and the system in general, not just delivering care myself.

So I knew I wanted to learn about changing/improving/innovating within the current system.

I was a consultant for a think tank (The Hanover Research Council) when I started traveling to hospitals talking about best practice research.

I saw an amazing lady named Lisa Haneberg give a talk on ‘flapping your wings’ in Silicon Valley. She was riding her motorcycle around the country giving these awesome talks.

I was totally inspired and started blogging at HealthManagementRx.

Through reading other blogs I found out about Matthew Holt, The Health Care Blog and Health 2.0.

I’d been reading for about a year when I saw an announcement for Health 2.0 interns.

I jumped all over that. Called and emailed until Matthew’s wife Amanda called me back.


N: What was the early hubbub about?

JMG: Wow. It’s more like what people weren’t saying about it.

The Wall Street Journal was interviewing him. He was the early healthcare authority for online content and business development, and Health 2.0 was this amazing movement nobody knew exactly how to define. But every article, blog post I read had this energy.

They were covering all kinds of things – policy, politics, the patient experience (which cinched it for me), startups in healthcare tech, health on the web, etc.


N: Was this is 2005 or 2006?

JMG: No this was much more recent: 2006 – 2007.

We move fast.

I talked with Matthew and he said ‘Yeah, we have these companies sending us information. Can you kind of figure out some way to organize it and see what they’re really doing?’

And I said ‘Sure!’ So, that’s what I did.

I joined up in November of 2007, and the Spring Fling was in March of 2008. And wow, what a way to learn about the latest and greatest in healthcare. But also the ‘mistakes’ some firms are making.

N: What is your position with them now?

JMG: That’s really exciting. John Pluenreke and Matthew decided to ‘adopt’ me as Lead Analyst. I love the work, I love the learning and I love the people. So it’s an awesome fit.
I cover news, interviews, really whatever they need to help keep Health 2.0 moving forward.

Stay tuned for the next part of our interview with Jennifer

To find out more about the Health 2.0 conference being held at the San Francisco Marriott on October 22nd and 23rd, go to http://www.health2con.com/

For more of Jen McCabe Gorman’s views go to her blog at http://healthmgmtrx.blogspot.com, and http://www.health20.nl/ is a website related to health 2.0 based in The Netherlands.