Charlie Sheen and Viagra don’t mix.

This is cute.

GigaOm invited guest blogger René Seifert, an entrepreneur in Europe & India, to discuss the Health 2.0 trend in Germany.

As companies such as Google (GOOG) ready their Health 2.0 plans, numerous German firms are promising to bring more online transparency to that country?s notoriously over-regulated health care market. Incumbents with strong content portals like Netdoktor or Onmeda, which are comparable to WebMD in the U.S., have been around for years. Recently, however, new entrants have begun looking to capitalize on web 2.0 principles for health care as well.

Dr.Uri Ginzburg, who writes the Medical 2.0 blog commented on Seifert’s post saying that the mere fact that GigaOm is focusing on this trend shows that the sector is growing.

Well, maybe so, but we especially agreed with Uri’s second point, which is that Health 2.0 is a worldwide phenomenon.  Accountability by drug companies, physicians and other healthcare fields will continue to become more important everywhere – not just the U.S. 

With more Americans looking outside the country for medication and medical procedures, this will continue to put pressure on the worldwide community to provide excellent care.

We are obviously big proponents of giving the customer the power and knowledge to take charge and make intelligent decisions.  They should not be limited to outdated ideas and self-serving interests that seal them into the care provided within their own borders. 

It’s good to see the discussion about Health 2.0 going beyond the traditional medial community.

tags: GigaOm, Health+2.0

Online healthcare sites are getting hot.  Witness Steve Case, who left AOL and started RevolutionHealth.  Today Steve announced that the site took home a couple of eHealthcare Leadership Awards.

“RevolutionHealth.com was just awarded the Best Overall Health Internet Site by the eHealthcare Leadership Awards – and also took home high honors for Best Health Content and Best Overall Design.”

The recipients seem a bit pharma-heavy, so we were glad to see consumer-focused RevolutionHealth in the winners circle.

It seems the award is well-deserved, and doing some research, I came across two posts by Allen Searls, who may have coined the term Health 2.0.  He writes about it here in his now defunct Wondiring blog in 2005, a company that was acquired by Revolution Health, and here in his Health 2.0 Blog back in February 2007 (not the new one, see that link below).  His passion for helping people to take charge of their own healthcare is evident in the second post.

According to his LinkedIn profile, he is still working at Revolution Health, so congratulations to him as well on the award.

We know we have started to beat the Health 2.0 drum, but companies that aren’t consumer focused will eventually find themselves mired in a backlash.  People want information to make their own decisions from sites that they can trust.

Frankie Dolan has a great post about the definition of Health 2.0 and how it differs from Medicine 2.0.

“I have come to think of Health 2.0 websites as being those that provide services geared towards the consumer, and Medicine 2.0 those geared towards services for the medical professional”

eDrugSearch is directed at the consumer, so by Frankie’s definition we are a Health 2.0 company.  And a good thing too since I have a real passion for using technology to empower the consumer.

What do you think would make a good Health 2.0 application for consumers?  What is missing out there?

Still, I can’t resist posting them.