ABSTRACT

This chapter explores what is crowd sourcing and co-creation, how they differ and how managers can use them to create patient empowerment and engagement to make them key players in the development of value-added health solutions aiming at improving their own experience. It shows how they can contribute to organizations' communication and branding. The new web-based open research exchange (ORE) platform consists of a database of measures and instruments, an interface for aspiring authors, a community for communication and collaboration, and a tool providing access to the PatientsLikeMe database for the purpose of validating measures. High-quality interactions that enable an individual customer to co-create unique experiences with the company are the key to unlocking new sources of competitive advantage. A personalized co-creation experience implies how individuals choose to interact with experience environment that the firm facilitates. Crowdsourcing may produce solutions from amateurs or volunteers, working in their spare time, or from experts or small businesses which were unknown to initiating organization.