Health 2.0: Beneath the Hype, There's Cause for Real Hope

[Commentary] Health 2.0 is a trend accompanied by both buzz and buzzwords. That worries some advocates for the poor, underserved and just plain old and sick. Will those groups be left behind in the latest information revolution? The potential positives of the Web-as-health-care platform for interactive health care services could be seen in two full days of presentations and discussions at a recent meeting in San Francisco, called the Health 2.0 Conference. Still, a certain Silicon Valley sensibility remained: widgets for weight control were much more likely to target the calorie count of cappuccinos than corn dogs. Yet the real question is not whether Health 2.0 arrives clothed in hype; of course it does. The most important thing to understand is that Health 2.0 is genuine change happening right now, not just another idea of how health care might be different tomorrow.