A Wikipedia/Linux for global healthcare information?

The open source movement already has produced innovations like online encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Linux operating system.

By creating a free or “open” platform that allows people to share and analyze information, the system can tap the collective intelligence of the world to improve technology and solve global problems.
In other words, 6 billion brains are better than one.

Some healthcare advocates want to apply the open concept to medicine. Dubbed “collaborative clinical care networks,” these databases offer doctors, patients and researchers ways to enter, search and access a vast pool of clinical and anecdotal data unavailable to any one person or institution.

“It’s the kind of thing (the Defense Advanced Research Projects agency) should build,” filmmaker Jesse Dylan told attendees at the Mayo Clinic’s Transform 2010 conference in Rochester, Minnesota, on Monday. “There is no one system online that does that. There’s a lot of incredible science that can come out of that.”

The concept combines two powerful forces sweeping healthcare: the use of computers to spot trends from lots of information (data mining), and patients asserting a greater role in their care.