The focus of this TED talk is how MIT mechanical engineer Jamie Heywood and his brother created a website called 'Patients Like Me' which is coordinated around people who are effected by illness. This was the influence of Jamie's youngest brother Stephen when he was diagnosed with ALS.
The purpose of this website was to improve the current chaotic medical system, particularly looking at the way treatments are developed and the way patients receive medical care.
Patients Like Me allows patients to get hold of information that has not previously been accessible. They are able to share their own data consisting of their illness, symptoms, treatment, and side effects and compare it to other subscribers data who have similar conditions. This collective data comes in a simplistic statistical and graphical format which has proved to be hugely comforting to these people and helps explain a lot of unanswered questions they initially had. The most recent advance to the website has enabled people to predict the outcomes of their condition within the next 12 months; using data of those with the same illness in a more advanced state.
I found this talk extremely insightful, and inspiring particularly when I was informed that almost every time the predictions prove to be correct. Jamie gave an example of this during the TED talk which was that from the predicted collective data they had discovered that ALS couldn't be slowed down by taking lithium, a year later there was a costly scientific study that resulted with the same answer.
If you are interested in either the TED talk or the website itself I have posted the links below.
TED Talk
Patients Like Me
