InterpretMyXray.com

Some innovative solutions are needed with increasing medical system pressures from aging populations coupled with an elucidated understanding of the medical process, that medical mistakes occur about a third of the time, mainly due to cognitive error.

What about a Web 2.0 company, SecondOpinion.com for example, where patients, having obtained electronic copies of their medical imaging data (X-rays, MRIs, etc.) post the information to the Internet community, appealing to the collective intelligence to seek whatever experienced or inexperienced opinions can be obtained, Wikinomics-style. The SecondOpinion.com community members interpreting the data would probably be in four groups, doctors and medical students, information experts interested in applying their pattern-matching models to novel data sets, other patients with similar conditions and those without any medical expertise.

The patients or site users would post their data anonymously via web handle, entering information that could include current prescriptions, full histories and eventually DNA scans. MyMedicalRecords.com could become the primary repository of personal electronic medical records, a universal human health database; patients could give new doctors their handle to review and add to their history.

This opt-in patient-driven rather than physician, insurance or medical-system driven mechanism promotes progress toward effective solutions while sidestepping onerous HIPAA and legal, ethical and privacy issues. Those that feel uncomfortable need not participate. A successful example of opt-in handle-anonymized personal data posting exists at Prosper, where 440,000 loan-seekers have agreed to have their credit histories posted publicly.

Another positioning of the concept is the serious video game, InterpretMyXray.com, where players (medical students and the general public) could go through a learning module and then be rewarded for correct diagnoses. The most accurate and top reputationed Xray interpreters might not be medically trained professionals, or perhaps even human.

The quality of the interpreted results would be interesting to see, the assumption is that many eyes, other skilled professionals and the wisdom of crowds might spot something important or bring a consistency of interpretation. Of course SecondOpinion.com and InterpretMyXray.com would not immediately replace traditional medicine but supplement it as a second opinion resource and mechanism for patient education.