Our story

Bridging the Gap

Our mission is to address the increasing need to move from just treating ill health to actually promoting wellness. We are living in an age of great technological change and development of new therapies. Inevitably this leads to people living longer with long term health issues. This leads to a greater demand on limited health resources — and hence the gap

As a result, many people are turning to online sources for health information, but unfortunately, the majority of the content available is not personalized or relevant to their specific needs. Even more importantly, we may know what we need to do to get better health, it’s just hard to take that first step. And when you do start your journey, it’s still hard to keep going along that path.

Our objective is to provide community based content to fill this gap. Thereby empowering individuals to make informed decisions about their health and wellbeing. We believe that by doing so, we can help to improve the overall health outcomes of individuals, communities and populations alike.

Health-shared is here to improve outcomes and quality of life for people who are concerned about their health through activating health journeys. There are specific reasons to join or partner with health-shared for each of the vital stakeholders in the health journey.

Here we offer a comprehensive solution to the lack of personalised healthcare information online. Our platform provides a one-stop-shop for sourcing information from a diverse range of sources, including healthcare providers and individuals who have experienced similar health situations. This diverse range of ‘sources’ make up one of our many communities. These communities come together to understand their issues, their needs, their hopes and fears over weeks and months, over the seasons and over the years. You can follow communities to be in the know and benefit from their combined wisdom.

Also, through our advanced content analysis, we are able to curate a collection of videos and text-based content that is tailored to your specific needs, making it easy for you to access the information that is most relevant and useful to you.

Our Commitment

In addition to this, we are also committed to fostering a sense of community and connection among healthcare providers and patients. By bringing together individuals with similar health experiences and facilitating dialogue between patients and healthcare providers, we hope to create a supportive and collaborative environment that benefits everyone involved. Ultimately, our goal is to not only provide you with information, but also to help you feel connected, supported, and empowered in your healthcare journey.

Being connected is great, but also is being a safe and ‘cozy’ place to be. To learn and possibly to share. Too often, the internet is a dark forest where we’ve become fearful due to harassment and trolling. Social media is based around a leader-follower relationship and promotes polarisation and extreme views with algorithms optimised to shock-value. Health-shared moderates content with a human in the loop AI augmented system supported by a community of Community Ambassadors.

Personalized Health Information

Our platform offers a unique feature that can help you discover health information that is highly relevant to you. We use information such as your age, gender, and location to match you with data from the global burden of disease database, which provides insights into health conditions that are statistically more likely to affect individuals like you.

However, we want to make it clear that this feature is optional and not enabled by default. You can choose to opt-in at any time, and we will always ensure that your personal data is protected and that you are in control of your information.

We understand that the world of online health information can be overwhelming and confusing. Our platform is designed with user-friendliness and accessibility in mind, so that everyone, regardless of their age or level of technical expertise, can benefit from the information and resources we provide.

The Power of Communities

We know that engaging in a community results in better health outcomes (1, 2). Our platform is built around communities, which are made up of knowledgeable and experienced patients and specialist healthcare providers who create and share content. These core members are passionate about their respective areas of expertise and are committed to helping others learn and grow.

By following a community that is relevant to your health interests, you can tap into this wealth of knowledge and experience and gain valuable insights and advice. Whether you are seeking information about a specific condition, looking for ways to improve your overall health and wellbeing, or simply want to connect with others who share similar experiences, our communities offer a space for learning, sharing, and connecting with like-minded individuals. We believe that by fostering a sense of community and collaboration, we can help individuals become more informed and empowered in their health journey.

1. O’Mara-Eves A, Brunton G, McDaid G, et al. Community engagement to reduce inequalities in health: a systematic review, meta-analysis and economic analysis.Public Health Research, 2013, doi:10.3310/phr01040.
2. Rifkin SB. Examining the links between community participation and health outcomes: a review of the literature. Health Policy Plan2014;29(Suppl 2):ii98-106. doi:10.1093/heapol/czu076 pmid:25274645

Contribute to health-shared communities

Communities are an excellent way to connect with others who share similar health experiences, learn from expert care givers, and share your own knowledge. By contributing to a community, you can help others who may be struggling with the same issues as you, find support and advice, and make meaningful connections. Whether you’re a patient, caregiver, or healthcare provider, your contributions can make a significant difference to the lives of others. So, we encourage you to join a relevant community, ask questions, share your experiences, and support one another. Together, we can create a supportive and collaborative environment that empowers everyone to take charge of their health and wellbeing

For healthcare professionals

Healthcare professionals are the point of the spear in terms of delivering healthcare when we are unwell. At least as important is the need to prevent illness and promote a healthy lifestyle. With limited time and resources, we never have enough access to healthcare professionals. But healthcare professionals know that in order to help people get the best outcomes, we need to help one another to overcome the barriers holding us back from better health.

Patient activation and supported self management are key to being able to deliver the best results for your patients. Tell your patients about health-shared.com communities to level up access and give people the tools they need to help themselves.

For patients, families and carers

Whether you’ve just met your healthcare professional and just thought of the question you needed to ask on the way out, or it’s 3am in the morning and you need answers — health-shared.com if for you.

You can search for information, browse and follow content hosted by communities or ask questions. You can select tags you’re interested in. You can even enter your age, gender and location and get suggested content tags based on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) database of epidemiological studies. The more you use the platform, the more personalised the content on your homepage feed gets. Don’t worry if you miss something in the community feed as you can get a digest email of all the content shared.

Whatever your health goals are, signing up and following a community will help you on your journey.

For industry

Healthcare has advanced hugely through the efforts of industry. Without health tech and pharma industries, we wouldn’t have the medicines and therapies which underpin the progress we’ve made in treating disease.

But, we’re understandably cautious in allowing industry into the ‘conversation’ because of infamous scandals including recently. However, the relationship with industry must be one of synergy. Industry and society must work together to improve outcomes, improve quality of life and reduce cost to society. Equally, industry understands that simply supplying medicine and technology is not enough. In today’s world, industry must be relevant to peoples lives and health journeys in their entirety.

Through partnering with health-shared communities, industry can participate in a full, meaningful and regulated way.

In serving the needs of everyday people, industry needs to understand what the needs of communities are. Insights from our seasonal surveys, in a safe and regulated way can benefit industry in planning new therapies and understanding barriers to use of current therapies. Health-shared shares anonymised community insights with partners for the benefit of the wider community. We believe this to be a win-win situation for all of society.

For government and society

Government and society align well with the themes of patient activation and supported self management. We all need to be able to self care better but also know when to seek help and feel the confidence to take ownership of our health. Health-shared is partnering with local government to establish location specific communities for chronic diseases, therapies and conditions.

For patient associations

Patient associations represent and campaign on behalf of the patients. Health-shared partners with patient associations with the intent that they streamline and amplify community engagement using our online community solution. It’s like facebook but better. Moderation is in a tiered structure with automated as well as human in the loop moderation. The ability to align scheduled content across seasons with automated community insight extraction is unparalleled.