Blog
VOTE
Name: PatientsLikeMe
Nominated Category: Organization
URL: http://www.patientslikeme.com
Area: Social network, Health and Medicine, Research
About:
Founded in 2004 by three MIT engineers, PatientsLikeMe is a privately funded company dedicated to helping patients with life-changing illnesses, on multiple fronts.
Description:
As a social networking platform, PatientsLikeMe is an online community where members can share their stories about living with diseases like ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Parkinson’s and HIV/AIDs with other patients and doctors; find information on treatment, with treatment reports and evaluations; search through symptoms; and read up on research being done on diseases affecting them. PatientsLikeMe is made possible by members who volunteer their personal health histories, as well as anonymous data made available for research.
PatientsLikeMe has also partnered with a diverse group of doctors, pharmaceutical and medical device companies and research organizations. By sharing with these partners the anonymous treatment, symptoms and outcomes data from patients, and allowing them permission-based access to the PatientsLikeMe community, PatientsLikeMe aims to drive further research on diseases.
Partners include nonprofits like Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Schlerosis, DNA research firm 23andMe and academic institutions like the University of Wisconsin’s School of Library and Information Studies. And partnerships are what keep PatientsLikeMe running, financially, too: operating costs are covered by partnerships with healthcare providers that use the data for research on treatment and care.
The PatientsLikeMe web site is geared toward the people that need the help the patients. (There is also a related site for industry partners). Members create a health profile of their medical history that helps them track their illness over time. The site keeps a tally of the 45,000-and-growing patient community, breaking down the population in terms of age distribution, gender, symptoms and other categories so that visitors to the site can really find other patients like them.
In terms of interacting with each other, patients can learn from each in forum discussions, through private messages and profile comments. And the platform keeps evolving: This summer, PatientsLikeMe launched a report series addressing issues in each of the disease communities in the network, inspired by patients input.
The Basics:
WHO: PatientsLikeMe
WHAT: An online community for patients with chronic and terminal illnesses, where people can share their stories with other patients, doctors and organizations; and data partnerships with PatientsLikeMe lead to further research on treatment and medical care.
WHERE: US-based, members can be from all over.
HOW to get involved: Membership is free. Corporations, research institutions and prospective partners can find out how to work with PatientsLikeMe at the partner site. You can also follow PatientsLikeMe goings-on on their blog, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channel.
WHAT other people are saying:
What do you think?
- Comment on this entry and tell us what you think. Who else should we be highlighting in this category?
- Share these initial selections with your network, through Twitter, Facebook etc
Learn more about ThinkSocial Awards here.
Thanks for your support and participation.
Posted in: Health, Organization, awards | Tagged: Data, Health, HIV, Illness, Medical, Research
