New e-health site asks patients: “How Are You?”

A new e-health portal for patients and healthcare professionals has attracted more than 700 sign-ups in the first few hours of its launch.

How Are You? is a social networking site that allows patients with long-term health conditions to take a more proactive role in their treatment by making it easier for them to communicate with the healthcare professionals who are working with them.

Users can sign into the portal with their Facebook or Windows Live accounts. There are also plans to allow users to sign in via their Google, Aol and Yahoo accounts.

Twitter integration for the service has also been launched. At the moment, users receive condition-specific tweets; there are plans to develop this as How Are You? evolves.

How Are You? has been devised by healthcare startup Cambridge Healthcare and was originally going to be called NHS.info. Dawson Kind, founder of the service, told one health website: “When we launched the portal it was named NHS.info, however, we weren’t prepared for the amount of interest the project generated not just in the UK but also internationally. In response, we decided to register a generic name that could provide a solution for all.

“How are you? was chosen because it sums up the concept. When a user provides how they’re feeling or inputs their virtual patient record, the content dynamically changes to provide relevant resources and features to that individual. Imagine a cross between Twitter and Facebook, but encrypted and you decide how much and with whom you want your information shared.”