Benjamin Heywood Interviewed by the Health Business Blog

Benjamin HeywoodBringing the New Year in right, Benjamin Heywood, CEO of PatientsLikeMe, was interviewed by David E. Williams, publisher of the Health Business Blog (not to be confused with David S. Williams who works with PatientsLikeMe). In the interview, Ben discusses the future of the company, its ground-breaking Openness Philosophy, and the differentiation of PatientsLikeMe versus other Health 2.0 companies.

Here’s how David E. Williams characterized PatientsLikeMe:

PatientsLikeMe is one of my favorite Health 2.0, social networking websites. The online community enables patients with serious illnesses to build content-rich connections to similar patients. Patients are motivated to provide all the relevant information about themselves and to stick with the site over time to help one another. As a consequence, PatientsLikeMe users collectively generate robust data sets that have the potential to generate meaningful insights for researchers and commercial entities. That leads to some interesting business opportunities for the company.

The interview provides great insight about PatientsLikeMe. Enjoy!

This entry was posted on January 2, 2008 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Members, Openness. Tagged: , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Comments »

  1. would it be possible, given the spirit of openness, for members of PLM to see your client list?

    Comment by j doh — January 20, 2008 @ 1:34 am

  2. If by “client list” you mean our list of members, you can view the “Patients” tab to see the profiles of everyone who has joined PatientsLikeMe. When members join PatientsLikeMe, all of the information they choose to share is open throughout the site.

    If you mean the contact information of our membership, in accordance with our Privacy Policy we do not disclose that information to any third parties. Doing so would violate the trust that patients and other members grant us through joining PatientsLikeMe.

    Comment by David S. Williams III — January 20, 2008 @ 8:33 am

  3. sorry if i wasn’t clear - i was not asking for a list of members, but rather a list of clients, i.e., someone who pays for goods or services - in other word, the entities to whom PLM is selling the information solicited on the website.

    Comment by j doh — January 21, 2008 @ 2:21 am

  4. Great question. As transparency is one of our core values, we will publish our client list in the About Us section of the site. At the moment, we have been focusing our time on developing the site and creating the best user experience for patients, caregivers, and other members, and less so on generating revenue. As we are a for-profit entity, we will pursue revenues at a later time.

    Comment by David S. Williams III — January 21, 2008 @ 7:56 am

  5. […] The report, which is free to download, includes a list of online health resources created by people that are working to change the way we share concerns and discover information. Some of the featured Health 2.0 pioneers: Amy Tenderich of DiabetesMine; Matthew Zachary of the I’m Too Young For This! Foundation; Jack Barrette of WEGO Health; and Ben Heywood of PatientsLikeMe. […]

    Pingback by racetalkblog.com » Health 2.0 and the Wisdom of Patients — May 8, 2008 @ 9:46 am

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