Who needs doctors anyway?

http://www.telytic.com/why-do-you-want-a-smartphone.html 

People will seek medical advice from the virtual community instead of their doctor!  How can this be?  Well, that's what Healthcare IT News reported on Oct 4, 2011.  Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business Professor predicts that the 5 most disruptive technologies will hit the medical field in full force and revolutionize the way people seek medical care.  Christensen defines disruptive technology as "cheaper, simpler, smaller, and frequently, more convenient to use".
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/5-most-disruptive-health-it-innovations.

Leading disruptive technologies in Healthcare

• In-house applications monitor and treat patients within their own home, not in the doctor's office.  This works well for patients with chronic disease that require frequent monitory, such as heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.
• Lightweight tools...there's an app for that!  Lots of great apps are on the market for things like nutritional counseling, weight loss or how to treat routine illnesses.
• Health communities make the best of crowd sourcing.   People will take advice from the community instead of going to the doctor.  Just wondering...is that a good thing?
• Mobile content that is easy to find from a mobile device.  People will use their smartphone to learn about an illness instead of asking the doctor.
• e-Commerce will become essential to patient care and require interfacing with payment portals.

A future that is easy and good

http://www.passporthealthusa.com/colorado/index.html

As a medical professional, this future is a bit scary to think that people will follow the most popular trends to treat symptoms instead of getting the right medical care that they need.  And that could lead to bad health outcomes.

http://mhealthwatch.com/

That is why I am pleased to see sites like mHealthWatch that "keep the pulse of the mobile health community".  See http://mhealthwatch.com/  A Seattle-based non-profit offers an app that delivers secure messaging between the patient and doctor to make it easy to get good advice.  This offers the best of both worlds, individualized care and it's easy.