1. Ask Real Patients About Their Experiences.
If you are living with a chronic medical condition or if you have just been given a new health diagnosis, chances are you want to connect with other people who share your condition. Online health communities allow it's members to post questions so that others with experience related to that topic can provide insights. Perhaps, you are hoping for some reassurance from others who have undergone a similiar surgery or you simply want to know if anyone has had results from a particular medical treatment. With the growing popularity of online health communities, people can now potentially connect to patients across the country or even the globe who have similar health experiences.

FacetoFace Health has Grown by 200% in the Past Thirty Days.

We believe that our significant membership growth is a testament to the need of personal connections in the health community today.  Our members are connecting with others who have a similar medical condition, who can understand what they are going thru and can offer personal experience as well as support.  Our site was created for the healthcare consumer -- the patient who doesn't know where to go for support and for those who feel alone in their health journies. 

We're thankful that our members know they are NOT alone.  They now have access to a network of people who share their medical experiences and conditions.  Sometimes, we just need to know there are others who understand and empathize. 

THANK YOU to all who have bravely made connections and shared your health experiences with others in our growing community.  We believe that the more we share our stories and offer our support to others with similar health conditions, the more informed, empowered and encouraged we all become.  None of us should face health and medical challenges alone.  Thank you for joining our efforts to humanize healthcare!

If you have not yet joined our site, we encourage you to register today. It's free and secure.

Each day new members are joining the FacetoFace Health community searching for support and information from others who have lupus, cancer, bipolar, depression, anxiety, HIV, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and other medical conditions. We believe that the more we share our health experiences with each other, the more empowered we all become.  At FacetoFace Health we are focused on humanizing health care.  By telling our unique health journeys we can provide valuable information to others facing similar conditions and challenges.  While the content on FacetoFace Health should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, the patient-generated content may provide valuable information, encouragement and support for people seeking to improve their health.

Below are 3 useful tips on how to participate on the site:

1.  Make Connections:

Befriend members on the site that share your medical condition, allergies and/or take the same medications.  Once you have completed your health profile and written a descriptive bio, you will automatically be matched to other users on the website.  Simply, click on the "HealthMatch" tab and view your matches.  Similar to other social networking sites, you can "add friends" by clicking on the appropriate link in a member's profile. 

You may also search for members with specific medical conditions by using the search box on the upper right corner of the page.  For example, if you type "bipolar" in the search box, you'll be shown a list of FacetoFace Health members with that term in their health profile and/or bio.  Once you have reviewed the profiles, you may start conversations or become friends with other members.

2.  Ask a Question

You can seek the input of other FTFH members by starting a conversation with another member, writing a post in Support Groups or writing a Health Diary entry. 

3.  Offer Support

Take the time to review and respond the posts that our members have written.  Offer your insights and experiences when appropriate or simply leave a comment with encouraging words.

Our hope is that through your participation on FacetoFaceHealth.com you will make valuable connections and will know that you are not alone in your health journey!  Together, we are humanizing health care!

Healthcare social networking needs some improvement.  People seeking specific resources may easily get overwhelmed by the overload of “medical” information on many social sites.  Health-related websites are often congested with parenting tips, diet trends and expert opinions on the latest health report (e.g. H1N1 Virus).  While this information may be valuable to some, it certainly is not valuable to every health consumer seeking specific medical information.

The current litany of healthcare social sites does not provide patients a means to locate and connect directly to others with similar health conditions and experiences.  Rather, websites provide daunting and broad message boards.  The problem with this means of communication is two-fold: first is the lack of regulation and consequently the amount of irrelevant posts or comments on message boards that patients must sift thru.  The second problem lies in the fact that patients (and caregivers) are putting their questions into cyberspace and waiting for the right people to happen upon their post.  There isn’t a direct way for patients to simply enter their medical conditions, treatment facilities, allergies, et cetera and get connected to people just like them.  That is, until now.

FacetoFace Health (FacetoFaceHealth.com) was designed to do just that.  The website is the brainchild of FacetoFace Health President and CEO, Nowell Outlaw.  Outlaw recognized there was a need for a vehicle which allowed healthcare consumers to find, connect and share information directly with each other after two family members were diagnosed with serious medical conditions.  He wanted to connect with patients who had been treated for the same illnesses (lymphoma) at a particular medical facility (MD Anderson), but became frustrated when he was unable to find a website which matched patients to each other based upon specific medical criteria. 

Nowell likens the flow of consumer-driven information on other health-related websites to a community bulletin board in a school cafeteria.  “Most sites simply provide a message board where someone posts a question and hopes that the right people happen to login and read the post” says Outlaw.  “We’ve taken steps to eliminate the waiting and gambling that comes from message board posts by connecting patients directly to one another.”  With this refreshing approach, patients can be matched and communicate directly with others who share their health experiences. Now the husband of a breast cancer patient or the mother of an ill child can reach out and ask others about their experiences with specific treatments, or medications – without having to post the question on a group message board and wait for someone, preferably the right someone, to reply.

“Our goal is to humanize health care.  We want to provide a straightforward and secure means for people to share their healthcare experiences and knowledge directly with others who may be going thru similar medical challenges” says Outlaw.  FacetoFace Health launched on April 7, 2009 and has been attracting new users every day to this new and improved version of health 2.0.

Well it's been a pretty incredible road to get here... my initial thoughts were that this thing would be a fast process... It's been exactly one year since we started working on FacetoFace Health - and it's been a ton of work.  It's interesting when you start a business how things sort of roll around (and around) and then finally you find your track.  We have spent hundreds (if not thousands) of hours working on interface design, usability, color studies, focus groups, technology foundations, matching algorythms, etc. etc.  Then take it all, get it ready and start your browser testing... Boy is that a fun process, what works in one, doesn't in another, and another - but eventually it gets done.  I think we're ready to go this time.  Last year (October) I found myself staring at FacetoFace Health and thinking - "I don't have a good revenue model" - after attending the Health 2.0 show in San Francisco I really was thinking this.  Sitting at tables with people, everyone asking everyone else - how do  you make money?.  We'll after all this time, we have our revenue model, healthcar matching algorthm, etc.  Our mailer to potential advertisers goes out the door this week - so it will be interesting to see how many want to participate in our little project.

The last six months have also been an interesting time for Health 2.0 / Social sites.  RevolutionHealth.com and DailyStrength.org were sold, and Trusera sent an email out that they might be closed at the end of April.  It's very interesting that sites like RevolutionHealth have very small communities (even though they had deep pockets) and sites like DailyStrength have very vibrant communities.  I've been asking myself over and over again - how did one get 30,000 and the other 500,000 within the same timeframe... My hunch - it's what you present to the user that the entire site is about - if your front door is a community then that's what you build - if your front door is a search engine then that's what you get.  Our goal is to have 100,000 registered users by the end of 2009 - if we can do that things will definately be flying for us - and we'll probably have to upgrade to new servers ($$$$).

It's really a shame, I think Trusera is really great, and you can see the amount of dedicated work that has been put into the site.  Of course, they also raised several million ($) while we have had to claw and scratch to get F2FH built.  It's been a hard road, managing cash flow, having very tight belts and sometimes loosing sleep over the entire project.  I was sitting in church today (Palm Sunday) and my pastor was talking about why you were put on this earth to do things... it has kept ringing in my head all day.  FacetoFace Health is about helping people and it's a good thing - I sincerly hope that it's users are able to utilize it to help themselves. 

That's about it.  We'll know shortly how well adoption starts occuring. 

Nowell

p.s. I do have to say that starting a business during and through this rough economic climate makes one focus on core items very quickly - which is good practice and we've been through it before.