That said, just putting my business hat on.. you haven't really proved your vision isn't crazy. The question is: how do you intend to generate traction + revenue? Just having an unique model, and a centralized community isn't going to be enough. As they say: build it and they won't necessarily come. In my eyes, you will need to rely on SEO a lot. The good news is that your site/model is unique in a field filled with a lot of spam. So it shouldn't be too tough to get high quality links.
The other good thing is you don't need a gazillion users since people (drug companies) will pay a lot for a very focused set of users with a specific disease.
But 50 pages indexed in Google right now isn't going to cut it. Not suggesting you go pull off a Demand Media, but you're gonna need some content.
Just curious, I have had similar ideas, but saw this NYT article about sites like CureTogether.com and PatientsLikeMe.com, & decided it was a met need.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/business/30stream.html?pag...
I am passionate about using tech to improve healthcare & would love to talk over email/IM about your idea in detail
All the best & keep up the great work
No, they learn whether they experience pareidolia or not, and that's how shit like homeopathy, cupping, rebalancing the humours, and, oh, every other non-scientific "modality" of "treatment" which doesn't work gets started.
"patient-to-patient healthcare is "crazy", "dangerous", or blasphemous"
"Blasphemous" - uh, WTF? "Crazy" - maybe, although I'd have gone with "foolishly optimistic disregarding the brain's ability to fool itself". "Dangerous" - definitely.
"Oftentimes I'm finding that hearing "no" means you're doing something right."
"They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." -- Carl Sagan.
Oftentimes when you hear "no", it actually means you're just fucking wrong. Not always, it's true. But mostly.
You do realize this process is the foundation of the scientific method, right? It's not like new drug ideas come from the science fairy.
And also you are wrong on your history. E.g. homeopathy was derived from a theory, not from patient experimentation.
Also worth pointing out, to anyone who might wonder if the ideas behind homeopathy might actually make sense -- that this was pre-germ-theory. I.e., he didn't know microorganisms existed, or that they might have something to do with illness.
Sure, if, by "theory" you mean "outlandish idea someone made up without any basis in fact and might as well have pulled it out of their ass" ("just a theory") instead of "systematic framework of ideas intended to account for, explain and relate together a wide amount of existing observational and experimental data, and to predict the outcome of similar results in the same field in the future" ("scientific theory").
"Like cures like, and weaker is stronger" was not a "theory". It was a wild-ass guess which also turned out to be fantastically wrong. The thing that made homoeopathy practitioners think it worked was bad (non-blinded) patient experimentation, where things like the observer effect, confirmation bias, the placebo effect, regression to the mean, and a whole bunch of other psychological biases, all came (and still come) into play.
And that compelling reason--it is our hypothesis--comes from community, and knowing that what you do on the site can very directly help others. And PLM is a quantitative system, not a community place. It is our belief that instead of feeling like a hospital's electronic health record system, successful software would feel more like a Facebook -- where it is the real relationships, your real ability to help others, that compel you to share your knowledge and what treatments have worked for you.
And yes, while Crohn's & Colitis are our first network, you are on the right track knowing that our heads are churning on ways to make software that helps people with one or more of many other chronic conditions.
I hope that is helpful!
I wish you all the best of luck in your endeavor and keep up the good work!
That said, if you gather enough data... maybe some sound conclusions or inferences can be drawn. Such is the hope of all "big data" projects. I sincerely hope this project has some folks who know how to analyze all the data (i.e. rigorously).
Edit: "Big data" may be a buzzword right now, but it's not a new approach. Astronomers can't experiment with planets, stars or galaxies; they "just" make boatloads of observations --- and they've been able to draw many conclusions.
