What if we built a time machine for patients, except instead of going backwards we go forwards. Can we find out what’s going to happen to you so that you can maybe change it?
Just imagine if you could collect data, compile it, and convert it into a computable understanding and change the way medicine is done and delivered.
That’s what Jamie Haywood and his brother created. PatientsLikeMe is a network of people with all kinds of diseases ranging from ALS, HIV, Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Schlerosis, and Fibromyalgia. The Heywood brothers built an ingenious website where people share and track data on their illnesses and the medicine they currently are on. What they discovered was that the collective data inputed by thousands of thousands of people did something. It has the possibility of explaining and predicting the outcome of drugs in their experimental phases before official statements are released. That is powerful.
A good question was raised though in the comments section stating, “How will you stop drug companies from creating thousands of fake accounts and entering fake stats that claim a particular drug works?”
Now, PatientsLikeMe already has a strict registration form where you need to enter data such as your phone number, adresses, and ID’s, doctors name, hospitals name, and recent lab results. But the main point here is that this website is truly powerful, and big drug companies that claim certain things about their drugs can either be verified by the data on this website or discredited.
You can compare you actually data with all the other patients with the same disease and see which drugs are working and which aren’t. See which combinations are working for others and which ones aren’t. This website is a life saver, literally. Prepare to be WOW’d.
