I am currently in San Francisco attending the Health 2.0 Conference. I was here last year for their inaugural event and was pleasantly surprised to see over double the attendance this year.

It was fascinating to hear what companies are doing to marry Web 2.0 technology and healthcare. This conference has migrated to be mostly consumer healthcare oriented with a little physician focus sprinkled in to round out the picture.

On the consumer front there are a lot of efforts underway to tackle the "long tail" challenge and optimize health search. Frankly, most of these companies are in for a long hard road. That's not to say there aren't really interesting communities evolving or improvements to search engines...but many of the business models are fragile to say the least. A growing development my physician friends found troubling is the seeming fascination and encouragement of self-diagnosis coming out of a number of these ventures.

This afternoon I was on a panel of physician-centric social networks. While I had previously met Enoch Choi, MD the moderator, I had no previous experience with the rest of the group. My impression...a sharp group with very interesting and legitimate efforts to serve physician needs. Represented was MyPacs/McKesson, Ozmosis, MedicalPlexus and Within3. Truly I would have no problem recommending any of them to a physician. All are free to doctors and make their money in diverse ways including enterprise sales, advertising and premium services.