by Tony Chen

Sorry I've been MIA for a few weeks - the flu bug hit our family pretty good - from my wife to our tot to me - all in all, about 2-3 weeks. Anyway, I'm back with a few healthcare 2.0 tidbits:

- The first virtual hospital is up on SecondLife, where you can have a good experience delivering a baby. Funny, even in the virtual world, people talk about patient experience.

- More and more patient "support communities" are popping up on Second Life, including the "Heron Sanctuary" for folks with MS.

- Paul Levy, hospital CEO blogger extraordinairre, writes about his view on "friending" people and co-workers on facebook. As you might guess, Paul is all about open communication.

- Matthew Holt has a great post on what patients care about when it comes to physician ratings & info. Interesting development: Angie's list, the widely popular home repair services ratings website, is doing healthcare now, too (yeah, join the crowd). Another site Matthew points out that I wasn't aware of: TheHealthCareScoop, a social media / patient opinion site for plans/providers in MN.