PatientsLikeMe Review — Health & Medical Advice Comparison (2012)

PatientsLikeMe is an online networking platform for patients, doctors and healthcare practitioners and organizations. Just like the name suggests, it links and enables patients to share their learnings and feelings with other patients like themselves; healthcare professionals and healthcare organizations.

It was founded in 2004; based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has since been offering exceptional services on health issues. They don’t just cater for patients but allow their families and caretakers to join in order to track their symptoms; feelings, and general state of the ailment in question. They provide access to needed tools, information and experiences in order for the patients to manage and take control of their diseases.

In summary, PatientsLikeMe provides:

• Real life experiences from patients like you
• Access to healthcare professionals and organizations
• A networking community for you to relate with fellow patients
• Information on ailments from authorities in the field
• A medium for discussing and tracking the progress of the ailment.
• More than 100, 000 patients and 1000 conditions to learn from
• Trusted partners to relate your experience and thus provide corresponding products

PatientsLikeMe is, without mincing words, a godsend to patients where they are free to express their feelings with other patients and get needed advice.

Key Differentiators

The following traits or characteristics give PatientLikeMe an outstanding position in this niche.

• Links you with like live patients

PatientsLikeMe connects you with more than 130, 000 patients just like you; and more than 1,000 health conditions to learn from. These are life people with similar experiences to share with you and thus creating avenues of learning and tracking progress.

• Access to trusted partners

They have trusted and reliable partners that they work with to provide resources and solutions to whatever health issues you might have.

• Info loaded newsletter on health issues

They also have the free PatientLikeMe newsletter that comes out every month. This newsletter treats various health related issues.

• Strong reputation

They have been in the business for more than 7 years, since 2004. They have thus not only garnered experiences but have strong reputation on issues relating to health. They can also be totally relied upon and trusted.

• Customer support

They offer good customer support. You can email your challenges to them and you can be sure of quick response. They also have the frequently asked question page that tends to answer questions you might have.

• Security of information

The information you give to PatientsLikeMe is totally secure as it will never be sold to a third party. They also operate on a secure server, guaranteeing the safety of whatever information you might have with them.

Key Competitors

Two key competitors to PatientLikeMe are:

• www.revolutionhealth.com and
• www.dailystrength.org

Revolution Health

This is a web based health care platform that showcases information, needed inspiration and various tools to aid you in taking charge of your health and invariably improving your life. There are a handful of ailments and health conditions compared to patients like me.

Pros

• Loads of health resources
• Cool resources and tools
• Access to drugs and available treatments

Cons

• The opinions are not clearly defined; whether from experts or users
• Fewer health conditions compared to PatientLikeMe
• Fewer patients compared to PatientLikeMe.

Revolution Health is an outstanding platform but PatientsLikeMe beats them in many areas including; having more health conditions and patients in their platform and hence more issues to relate and share with each other.

Daily Strength

Pricing and Packaging

For sites of this nature, one would expect exorbitant and outrageous prices to come with it. But this is not the case. PatientsLikeMe, along with the two rivals offer their services for free. They seem to have other ways of making money as stated in the PatientsLikeMe website.

It is actually good to know that services of these natures that people spend a fortune on are being offered for free. Despite the fact that the services are free, one has to abide by the policy. You also need to consult a professional as they will not be made liable for following their advice.

When comparing the PatientLikeMe platform with the rivals, you will observe that if they were all to offer their services at full pricing and packaging, it would still be a reasonable price, compared to what they are offering.

Customer Reviews and Feedbacks

There are a handful of customer’s reviews and feedbacks coming from the web. Let’s look at some of them and what they have to say.

They were given a rating of 4 stars by Health 2.0, and the following was said about them.

“PatientsLikeMe is a heath data-sharing platform that helps patients share their experiences and manage their own conditions, while changing the way the industry conducts research and improve patient care.”

http://www.health2apps.com/2011/06/06/patientslikeme/

“A Cambridge-based website that brings patients together to talk about their disease, treatments and medications is expanding. The site, “PatientsLikeMe” has been limited to people coping with one of 22 conditions. Starting today, it’s open to patients who want to discuss any health issue…..”

“PatientsLikeMe is a Web 2.0 pioneer, an early demonstrator of just how powerfully the Internet can create online communities of people with shared interests. It began with a Newton family’s tragedy — a young man’s fatal diagnosis of Lou Gehrig’s disease — and now continues to explore new territory in Internet uses for health”

http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2011/04/patients-like-me-expands/