Healthcare through social computing: a case for public–private collaboration

Lately, a new trend has specially outreached on the Information Society that of Social Computing. Starting from a citizen-focused model of health seamless provision of services, this paper analyses some current Web 2.0 initiatives on the Health sector. These opportunities would not be fully achievable without the cooperation of public and private agents. First, an approach to Socio-Health 2.0 is made, including examples on different Social-Computing applications. Then, we propose a research framework for healthcare under the impact of Social Computing. Third, different cases are analysed to illustrate the potential and to test the framework robustness. Finally, some conclusions are drawn.