I have heard of MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. But until I read John Sharp's presentation at HIMSS in Cleveland, I had never heard of Sermo. Sermo is "the fastest-growing community created by physicians, for physicians. Here physicians aggregate observations form their daily practice and then -rapidly in large numbers -challenge or corroborate each others opinions, accelerating the emergence of trends and new insights on medications, devices, and treatments."

Sermo is only for MDs and DOs licensed to practice in the United States and is free (more on the free later). It boasts of a membership of over 10,000 physicians and a "patent pending technology to authenticate and credential physicians in real-time." They authenticate each physician at registration and then re-validate upon every sign in.

Sermo users can discuss any topics, pose questions, note other physician observations, comment, search for information, post images, and send posting to colleagues who are not members of Sermo. In short it is MySpace or Facebook for doctors and appears to be very similar to LinkedIn which is an online network for business professionals.

I mentioned earlier that Sermo is free. Sermo is a little vague as to how it supports itself and is able to make money. "Sermo's business model is one of information arbitrage, the opportunity that arises when breaking medical insights intersect with the demand for actionable, market-changing events in healthcare." To me that is vague.

Why do I care how Sermo makes money and I don't care how MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn make money? Because we are talking about medicine and money, and even though big money drug reps can't join, there are plenty of documented cases where doctors with conflicts of interest have promoted one drug or product over another. If you don't believe me or think those are isolated incidents then you didn't hear Arthur Caplan's lecture at MLA this year.

Which brings me to another topic of concern...

There are some paying Sermo clients. Remember when I said that Sermo is free and only doctors can join? Well, I lied. Actually, Sermo kind of did. If you read their FAQ's you will see the question, "How will Sermo paying clients use information from the Sermo community?" Huh!? I thought it was free and only doctors could join. Oh contraire.

"Sermo's clients will use data collected from the Sermo system to help
forecast potential problems or new uses for commercially significant medical
products and therapies, gain early insight into outbreaks and other changes in
disease states and conditions that can affect the public health, perform
epidemiologic research investigations, survey the opinion of practicing
physicians on topics related to medical care, assess the success and adoption of
best practice recommendations, look for opportunities to improve medical
practice, and protect and promote patient safety and the public health."

"Sermo doesn't presume the relative value of any piece of information.
We leave it up to our clients to perceive that value and assign a dollar value
on any piece of information that reflects their interest in a particular topic.
Clients use it to further their goals and get information, the same way
physicians use it to get their questions answered. By maintaining system
availability to all different parties it creates a more diverse community. So
all kinds of different ideas are afforded potential value as opposed to being
given a pre-assigned market value. It is truly grassroots."

There is no indication as to what type of people the paying clients are. Maybe I just watched the X-Files too much and it made me paranoid, but I would like to know more about who can get access by paying money. Because "At the present time, Sermo is open to physicians licensed to practice in the United States." In the future, they will have ways for non-physicians to access Sermo. Are the paying clients the future non-physicians?

I think Sermo is an interesting idea and great way for physicians to network and communicate. It especially offers physicians working in rural or remote locations in the U.S. another means to collaborate and communicate with their peers. I am concerned about the whole money thing. Perhaps I am being too picky but since it has to do with medicine, I think a little more transparency is needed. Perhaps they are vague because it is a hot technology and a hot idea and they are nervous about competition. After all, they are venture backed startup that the folks at The Motley Fool said to add to the IPO watch list.

What is an interesting side note for all of you hospital librarians with IT blocking issues. My hospital blocks MySpace and Facebook but does not block LinkedIn and Sermo. Hmmm, is that an issue of content or could it be that the IT department hasn't learned to block these two social networking sites? It will be interesting if Sermo ends up getting blocked. I bet that is one thing Sermo hasn't considered, hospital IT departments blocking their site just like they block MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, chatting, videos, etc.

Labels: Social Software