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GHIT Notebook

March 9, 2007

I'm wondering what the expanding universe of Second Life and similar online ventures will mean for healthcare.

Second Life struck me the first time I tentatively explored it as nothing more than a glorified role-playing/games environment, and indeed it's ideal for that as Sony made clear recently when it said it was going to create a similar virtual world for players hooked on its PlayStation.

But, when you look a little deeper, some of the more serious potential does come through. Indeed, that's part of the intent of the creators of Second Life. They want Second Life to be "an exciting new venue for collaboration, training, distance learning, new media studies and marketing. "

That's the commercial business pitch, of course, but it's not too much of a stretch to see how this might apply to medicine and healthcare. Outreach is always an issue in healthcare, and if Second Life continues to grow at it's current rate -- it was launched in 2003 and already has nearly 4.5 million "residents" -- then it will quickly get to a size and complexity that healthcare institutions will find of interest.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for one, already thinks it is. It has a presence there and has begun to reach out to Second Life residents through such things as health fairs so they can learn about health topics that are relevant to them.

John Anderton, who started up the CDC's Second Life site, thinks it has a chance to be as important a way to get its health message across to people as are the other, more common channels such as TV, radio, billboards and so on.

"I'd like to be able to post health alerts that could reach all users of Second Life, or have the ability to sign people up to receive alerts specific to their needs and concerns," he told me.

What's probably as important as the actual presence itself is that it's not been dismissed within the CDC as a viable way to promote their message. Anderton said he has to explain and evangelize, for sure, but that people in the CDC have so far been supportive. (Though see these recent posts on the CDC Chatter blog.)

What about other government departments? If the CDC can make use of it, what about the broader mission of outfits such as Health and Human Services, or the National Institutes of Health?

I could also see it being of use in how doctors reach out to patients, particularly in wellness situations and with the elderly who live at home.

It's a stretch to think the average 70 or 80 year old is going to sit down at a computer and mess around in Second Life, but if a Second Life kind of approach could be devised for a mobile device they could carry with them, it might be a good avenue for the kind of interaction doctors and nurses say they need with these kinds of patients.

Telcom companies are already looking at how to let their customers link into Second Life over their cell phones, so the channels for this kind of interface are already being made available, at least technically.

By Brian Robinson, GHIT Contributing Writer

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