Short description
ihealth is not transformative in itself, but it was first to put a well working e-health app on the market and it is an interesting indication of what could become a transformative shift in the health sector where two things happen:
1. People become the owners to their own health data, instead of their doctors.
2. A shift in focus from "curing ill people" to "keeping people healthy".
As iHeath describes the app: "Good health starts with each individual taking a more active role in their health. iHealth Lab’s goal is to empower people to manage their health by providing easy to use devices and tools to test, track and share personal health data."
More information can be found here:http://www.ihealth99.com/
This is an area that will grow fast and already there are many similar apps out or on the way such as:
http://www.withings.com/
The best with the app/supporting initiative
+ Making basic health data available
+ inspire others to explore e-health
The weak parts of the app/supporting initiative
- Not doing anything really interesting
- Only available for iPhone
- Only simple values with little context
What could accelerate this app/supporting initiative into a world changer?
> This is probably not an app that ever will contribute to any change, it looks more like a company that want to tap into the health trend without any specific vision (hopefully they will surprise us and do something interesting, but there are other things happening that probably will turn up on this page in the near future where world change can be discussed.)
Delivery
How direct is the delivery of the result the app tries to achieve
- Direct
- Indirect
- Inspirational
- Long shot
Comments
The best is yet to come.
Transformative approach
How transformative is it
- A new world
- A major shift
- A bit of a shake-up
- A gentle rocking
Comments
The personal health data and to keep track of your data over time are interesting aspects.
How much does it encourage collaborations
How much are new networks supported
- Strong support for global networks?
- Currently encourages new forms of collaboration
- Provides interesting opportunities in the future
- Restricted to a small (expert) group
Comments
As you can share your data this app can hopefully encourage others to take it further.
What synergies can be delivered
How well does it also solve other problems/generate solutions
- It solves everything
- Several important challenges
- Some important challenges
- Only one challenge
Comments
Not much here.
Nine billion contribution
How global is it? Is it helping/will it help everyone on the planet
- Instant global equality
- Almost global
- Getting (incrementally) global
- Not applicable
Comments
We run the risk of a lot of rich people spending even more time on their own bodies and less thinking about the rest of the world.
Building on current trends
How well does it use current trends
- The app is setting new trends by itself
- Building on multiple trends
- Effectively building on one trend
- Not really building on any major trend
Comments
Peoples interest in health and growing understanding that health is about more than not being sick.
Timeframe
How fast can it deliver
- It's already happening
- In the coming weeks
- In a year or so
- In a distant future (hopefully)
Comments
A lot is required before transformative change will take place in the heath area, but when it will happen it will happen much faster than most experts think.
Transparency
Does it support transformative transparency
- Brave new transparency
- Transparency that is innovative (never seen before)
- Increased transparency, but nothing innovative
- No increase in transparency
Comments
There many interesting opportunities here, but also very important issues regarding privacy. Few would like a future society when all the personal health information is in the public domain, or owned by the state/private cooperation.