Jamie Heywood has intertwined social networking with the journey of discovery. His brainchild, Patients Like Me is revolutionizing social networking for people who share the common thread of suffering from a life changing condition.
His work began when his brother died from ALS at 31. Heywood, his little brother and a colleague from MIT took his brothers experience of physical decline and turned it into something extremely positive. A social experiment for people to share their experiences, intertwine many variables and individual stories, find trends and convert that into relevant data.
Given my status, what is the best outcome I can hope to achieve, and how do I get there?
As the wise say, its universally understood that you must give to others and contribute to your community in order to be successful. That’s precisely what those ~45,000 patients that are utilizing Patients Like Me are doing; they’re sharing their stories as data and contributing.
Their stories are changing the way medicine is operated because each variable brings relevant, up to date variables it into context of delivery of care. With this open network, a patient with a mood disorder can see what conditions are bring treated, drugs that are being prescribed, side effects, blood work, and other components of care.
Patients Like Me will engage the medical community, and as long as the information being distributed is not taken out of context and most importantly a licensed medical professional is monitoring you, it seems this social networking experiment really is amazing.
By Keyana Azari
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