First, let’s talk Web 3.0.
Web 1.0 is the static webpage of the late 1990s. The website is simple a page, presenting information to you.
Web 2.0 is the formation of community, circa 2007. It includes elements such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Here, as opposed to Web 1.0, individuals can engage directly with others online.
The next step, Web 3.0, is when most everything connects and engages with most everything. Here we are in the arena of Big Data, The Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and The Semantic Web, a space where “stuff” ( your Apple Watch, your TV, your fridge, your car), your digital platforms, and you are engaging with everyone else’s stuff, platforms and selves.
Rephrased, Web 3.0 is when community (loosely defined as a collection of individuals, things, and software platforms) engages with itself, most often without the individuals awareness.
With this as a starting point, we can say that Healthcare 3.0 is the application of Web 3.0 to Healthcare.
Now, Healthcare 3.0 is a different beast, well beyond a healthcare organization having a Facebook Community, you emailing your doctor via your electronic health record platform, or doing a webinar.
Instead, it’s a movement towards understanding how your digital pattern (as represented by information contained in your medical records, your Facebook page, your Fitbit, your finances, etc) engages with everyone and everything else’s digital pattern, all with the expectation this will lead to better healthcare.
Will Healthcare 3.0 provide better healthcare? It may, but that has yet to be seen. There are quite difficult technical challenges ahead, but I personally believe they will be addressed.
However, I am much less optimistic about the ethical challenges.
Although not recognized as such, the ethical challenges surrounding Healthcare 3.0 are much more difficult to address, and they are not being addressed with the same energy and rigor as the technical challenges.
There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is it is nearly impossible to address an ethical dilemma if it isn’t first defined, and to define an ethical dilemma in the Healthcare 3.0 space does require some technical understanding of the space.
For example, it’s very difficult for a physician to weigh in on the moral tradeoffs between an AI program using symbolic reasoning versus machine learning if he or she doesn’t know the difference between the two.
Anyway, part of my mission is to give some insight into the technology surround Healthcare 3.0 technologies so physicians and healthcare executives can weigh in on these questions.
Wish me luck!