Facebook in mHealth- Games for the ailing World

Have you ever thought how can Facebook revolutionarize the way healthcare is taught, implemented and delivered in the world??

Can we use Peer Pressure to eliminate Obesity? Diabetes? High Cholesterol? For a minute, let us understand what is Facebook?

Facebook is a great way to meet friends and keep up on what they are doing. Once you add a friend to your Facebook friend list you will always know when they are adding things to their blog or updating their profile. Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information, and other personal information. Users can communicate with friends and other users through private or public messages and a chat feature. They can also create and join interest groups and "like pages, some of which are maintained by organizations as a means of advertising.

Why Facebook for mHealth? It has been found that people are looking for reliable information on healthcare products and services on the worldwide web. Google shows up millions of results but people tend to rely on peer group recommendations only. Social media is most popular amongst information seekers and Facebook was the most popular one (18%), followed by YouTube (12%), Blogs (9%), Twitter (6%). The survey was conducted on 1000 respondents. Overall, nearly a third of respondents, and 50 percent of those under the age of 35, had used social media for healthcare purposes, which can range from registering a complaint to looking up informational videos on YouTube.

What all can be done? Think of Health Maps, community building, support groups and Health games- where you can throw challenges, earn points and redeem them. Pulswatch- a start-up that has created a GPS powered wearable smart sensor that allows users to set fitness goals, track their workouts and challenge one another to one of four interactive running games which spur continued exercise. For example, the platform’s running game, Chase, pits runners against their friends to match each others’ run times, or chase them down if they get too far ahead. In addition to bragging rights, the winner of the race claims a trophy and PulsWatch points which can be used to purchase additional applications from the PulsWatch store.

How about launching a Facebook currency that is as good as money and can only be redeemed on portals like healthkart.com, Drugstore etc. for buying Healthcare related products/services?

If you have more ideas, please write to me at drruchibhatt@gmail.com

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