After reading a post about participatory medicine on e-patients, I started thinking about the power of online communities.

Communities meet a basic human need. Before the rise of the web, gathering in a community was restricted to physical establishments and bound by location. The web is now offering the ability for people to form communities that are not restricted by time or place. People can meet, gather, and share information and ideas at anytime, from anywhere. New community-based health websites are mostly empowering patients in making connections with others like them. Besides just finding that personal connection, members of a community also have a lot of knowledge to offer, because they went through the same experience.

On PeoplesMD, we are trying to nurture that characteristic of communities.
We are creating a space that enables people to find the best health information online using the power of community. We rely on our members to find the best web pages for each other’s issues and share that information with everyone.
As a result, people get recommendations for the best places on the web that help them deal with their health issues. That advice comes directly from people like them who want to take an active role in their health care and support others in their community.