Not long ago, the term patient influencers was an oxymoron. Determined to change that and give patients the power to drive conversations about care and treatment, WEGO enlisted an entire army of opinion makers. It has since connected more than 100,000 of the most influential bloggers, tweeters and pinners, not to mention users of health-specific (and WEGO-backed) platforms Truvio and CureClick. Barrette expects that sum to double within a year. “While many companies have been talking about being patient-centric, there was no good way to do that before,” he says. “To take the friction out of the space, we built a mobile platform with the technology to make these instant interactions easier.” In return, these patients provide insights for groups ranging from regulatory agencies to pharmaceutical companies. Barrette admiringly describes WEGO users as a “glowing power source. They’re passionate, articulate and experienced—and driving healthcare change and innovation. They are seen not as an audience, but as partners.”
