Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Ready To Get Into Healthcare
New submitter Ted_Margaris_Chicago sends a report from Reuters indicating Facebook will be adding healthcare features to their social network.
The company is exploring creating online "support communities" that would connect Facebook users suffering from various ailments. A small team is also considering new "preventative care" applications that would help people improve their lifestyles. In recent months, the sources said, the social networking giant has been holding meetings with medical industry experts and entrepreneurs, and is setting up a research and development unit to test new health apps. Facebook is still in the idea-gathering stage, the people said.
The article notes two reasons in particular that spurred Facebook to this course of action. First, the day that Facebook let people share their organ donor status, the U.S. saw a 21-fold increase in people registering to be organ donors. Second, they noticed users with chronic conditions had a tendency to search Facebook for advice.
First, the day that Facebook let people share their organ donor status, the U.S. saw a 21-fold increase in people registering to be organ donors."
Now they only need a motorcycle.
" Second, they noticed users with chronic conditions had a tendency to search Facebook for advice. "
Must be "stultia gravis" cases
Because when you're looking for highly accurate, trustworthy information, you think of Facebook!
I can see a LOT of insurance companies flocking to "friend" everyone to get a share of this info, not to mention the other thousands of advertisers, and of course the govt, since it is becoming so entangled into a person's private healthcare history.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
...keep the comments section on Esquire's Politics Blog working, no way I trust them with anything regarding health and medicine.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Realizing that when people are sick,they like to eat at McDonalds and that fast food potentially contributes to obesity McDonalds today announced their initiative to get into healthcare. Now, when placing an order, the crew will be trained to ask questions about the order takers health and healthier alternatives will be suggested instead. Customers who refuse to give over their health information as stored on their facebook account or ACA insurance card will not be served. McDonald's corporate CEO said "This is not unlike a bartender refusing to serve alcoholics. We see this as a good thing for us to give back to the community and help further civilization's goals and a healthier, happier people. Let's move it!"
Hmm..exactly where are you talking about?
I don't know of any laws in the US that forbids the insurance companies from using information from any source, especially if it is voluntarily dispersed by the individual??
I have to imagine if you're wanting life insurance, this will be one of the first wells the insurance companies go to mine for info....I would.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
As somebody with a chronic condition, I'm in a group or two on facebook about it. Its nice to get advice from real people who have dealt with things before. However, I find that 85% of people that are in the group usually post things akin to "I'm vomiting blood, have horrible pain and high fever, what should I do?" Erm... maybe go to the ER? While its not a bad thing to use to seek out some general advice (especially if you take anything you hear with a grain of salt), a lot of people use it as a substitute for real medical care or as a way to justify their fears of not going in to see a doctor, and that's terrifying.
I can't possibly envision ever making Facebook privy to ANY health issues whatsoever. They would gladly shill that information out for profit - undoubtibly why they're doing it. With something such as health issues which are so confidential, making Facebook privy to any of this would be absolutely terrible.
The mental health section should just be a page that says "get off Facebook."
I have to imagine if you're wanting life insurance, this will be one of the first wells the insurance companies go to mine for info....I would.
Why the hell this isn't modded up is beyond me. You're absolutely correct in exposing, yet another, reason that displaying every little thing about yourself on a public message board is silly. I guess it's moronic to still beat the "stop using facebook" drum, but if you wouldn't go up to some random person on the street and tell them some bits of info about youself, regardless how in-depth, then don't post it on facebook. It's coming to the point that - just like when you are under arrest, the first thing the policeman will tell you is that you have the right to remain silent, if you refuse that right, everything you say can, and will be used against you in court - we need to think in terms of things that we say, on public boards, will be used against us. Maybe not in court, but surely the more data there is on each individual, the more these big-ass corporations can use that data in their favor. PS your privacy doesn't make anyone money, so it's not in their favor.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
You're forgetting something - people with nasty ailments which can be terminal or directly linked to higher rates of suicide need a strong support group to improve their chances of survival, aside from receiving regular treatments and/or pain control from their physician. In these cases, the insurance companies already know these people are afflicted - but it's simply possible that a local support group does not exist, and smaller online communities can be easily fragmented or shutdown on a whim by the owners. At least with Facebook, people are connecting with each other on a platform that is unlikely to go away any time soon.
Say what you want about advertisers and the government, but this post is coming from a country with national healthcare and neither "Joe Government" nor "Your Friendly Neighborhood Claims Adjuster" are trying to be my friends. You need to be a lot more worried about the day when Facebook becomes the official platform for Electronic Medical Records (EMR) to be used by physicians sharing real patient data behind the scenes.
No, "most of the western world" typically actually means "the whole western world, except for exactly one country, which is ass backwards on the issue", most of the time, that country is the USA.
Facebook don't give a monkey's toss about anyone. They are not trying to engender valid discussions. They are going to monetise this. Full stop. For-profit companies do nothing -- nothing -- in the best interests of their users. This is about dissemination of data. Period. I trust no organisation for which the first charter is profit. Facebook has proven over and over again they are not to be trusted. They change their privacy settings on a whim, breaking existing settings, adding new ones that don't default to on. No, thank you.
Marketers hate me and my kind. I have no social profiles, no online presence at all. Google me and find nothing. I have cultivated this because I believe in due time there will be a fallout from the lack of privacy.
In other countries, that is one thing. In the US, any info can be used to cancel your policy, jack your rates, deny claims (good luck going anywhere against their billion dollar lawyer teams), or perhaps be used for a criminal investigation.
HIPAA is a toothless law, and has never has been enforced, even once. At best, there was a -threat- made to enforce it so that a medical place would at least think about security, but it has yet to be actually used by a prosecutor in a court of law.
Would that be Xerox?... or Sony?... or Commodore?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?