Technology

Being diagnosed with an illness can often be an isolating experience, even if that illness is treatable.  After all, when you’re sick, it often feels like no one else has ever been sick before except for you—like no one else has ever traveled a similar path.  That’s why it’s important for patients to know that they’re not alone; that there’s often a community of people out there who can lend support and a helping hand.  It’s also nice to know that your physician is not making decisions in a vacuum; that there may be, in fact, other treatments available for what ails you.

Healthline, a leading provider of intelligent health information services, now offers a pair of features called TreatmentSearch and DoctorSearch that both tap the Web 3.0 concept of semantic search to help people get their bearings in this strange and unsettling world of health care.  Generally speaking, semantic search is a means by which online searching is improved by using data from semantic networks to disambiguate search queries and provide more meaningful search results.  Semantic networks have the ability to tell computers not only that two things are related, but how they’re related as well.  Semantic search and semantic networks will form the backbone of what’s being touted as Web 3.0, an internet paradigm in which networked computers don’t merely present or process data, but understand it as well.

“Healthline semantic search technology enables us to get inside not just the consumer’s health inquiry, but all the relevant associations,” says West Shell III, Chairman and CEO of Healthline Networks, as quoted by ReadWriteWeb.

Healthline’s TreatmentSearch is for patients whose doctor has already prescribed a course of treatment, but want to find out if other treatment options are available.  The patient enters their diagnosis, and via a semantic search, TreatmentSearch returns resources including treatment options, treatment costs, and specialists.  DocSearch helps patients search for health care providers by ZIP Code and symptom, and searches can be refined by distance, name, hospital affiliation, experience, and language.

Lacking, however, from Healthline’s current offerings is a social networking offering that allows patients with a similar diagnosis to network and form like-minded communities.  Whether or not such functionality is in Healthline’s queue is unknown, but it would make the site a stronger destination site.  As it stands, however, Healthline’s use of semantic search features makes for some pretty powerful functionality that helps patients make informed decisions about their course of treatment, and goes a long way towards democratizing health care information in general.

By Robert Pothier