Are Patient Communities an Effective Way to Deliver Care?

That was the question debated at the 2012 Connected Health Symposium on October 25.  Two physicians, Dr. Andrew Watson, Surgeon and Medical Director for the Center for Connected Health and Dr. Jeffrey Benabio, Physician Director of Innovation with Kaiser Permanente faced off on this topic.  Alexandra Drane, Founder of Eliza Corporation, moderated the event.

Dr Watson presented the argument in favor of patient communities.  Noting the Institute of Medicine’s figures that $750 to $900 billion are wasted by traditional healthcare in the US, Watson feels that the face-to-face system of care needs to evolve.  With so many US patients already online, online communities are a vehicle to reach people over distance and time and the medical community has an obligation to help organize this, he said.

Dr. Benabio began with a quote from another physician “Patients running online communities are…