I love MEDLIB-L, with the span of 2 minutes I received references to two different articles stating why Web 2.0 technologies should not be blocked by businesses or health care.

The first is a short little article Don't Block Web 2.0 Access, Says Gartner which states that businesses need to address how they can allow safe access to Web 2.0 technologies instead of blocking them out all together. "Strategies to contain and protect the use of new technologies will always be more effective in the long run than security approaches that rely solely on blocking."

The second is a longer article Web 2.0 and Chronic Illness: New Horizons, New Opportunities. Neil Seeman. Electronic Healthcare v. 11(1) 2008 104-110. This article mentions some of the concerns of Web 2.0 in health care such as group opinion and misinformation, limited access to information for under served, illiteracy effecting access and comprehension, and lack authority control. However, it also mentions that Web 2.0 offers opportunities for hospitals and health regions. Yes you read that right. "Hospitals and health regions enjoy an opportunity to harness the power of Web 2.0 by creating trusted communities on already existing Web 2.0 'wiki farms' or by generating their own customized Web 2.0 sites."

Hospitals and and health regions have a perfect opportunity to expand their brand recognition and reach more potential patients. "In this way, hospitals and regions can overly Web 2.0 communities with their own trusted brand, make the Web 2.0 communities relevant for their clients and allied partners and impose a governance model on the community that safeguards the quality and reliability of the information contained on the site." Facebook was also mention as providing organizations with a significant advantage for fundraising and volunteer engagement. These technologies offer huge potential for patient satisfaction, self care, and self empowerment. They offer patients the opportunity to connect to local services, remote health libraries, and allow patient support services.

Personally I think the second article is a great article to save, print off, tag, email, to your IT powers. If that doesn't work send it to marketing, because the marketing department is always looking at ways to expand hospital market share and brand recognition. Let marketing join in the push for IT to allow access to these applications.

Our institution offers "public" wireless Internet access to patients, visitors, and others who don't have institutional computers. Non-institutional laptops are able to surf the Internet, but for security purposes cannot access the hospital Intranet. One would naturally assume patients and visitors would be able to access chat, YouTube, Facebook, etc. since they are restricted from accessing the Intranet. Not so. Those applications are blocked. Despite the fact that patients and visitors have no access to the Intranet and hospital applications, they are also blocked from communicating to the outside world through support groups on chat, Facebook, or MySpace. Patients who find an interesting and reputable video on their condition/surgery hosted on YouTube are blocked from seeing it. Why? Please tell me it isn't a security issue, because they can't get onto the Intranet.

Hospitals not only need to look at ways to use Web 2.0 technologies to their advantage, but they also need address a way for their patients and visitor to access them. For a patient undergoing chemotherapy and for whom outside visitors are forbidden, simple chat communication can be a huge moral booster. Why don't these patients just pick up the phone and call their friends you ask? Because they like to chat, or because their friends are a long distance call, or because they are chatting with other "friends" who are experiencing the same thing.

Web 2.0 technologies should be available in the hospitals not only from a business opportunity but also from a patient satisfaction opportunity. (And isn't patient satisfaction also a business opportunity for hospitals?)