1336 Copyright © 2019, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 66 DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-8362-2.ch066 ABSTRACT Crowdsourcing has immense potential in the health care industry as it can tap into a vast global pool of knowledge to solve a wide variety of health care problems. This chapter frst categorizes the diferent problems in the health care industry. It then describes some existing health care services and also dis- cusses the future challenges that a typical crowdsourcing service could face. The chapter emphasizes the potential of crowdsourcing to disrupt old ideas and introduce new ones as well as a make a signifcant improvement in the social quality for diferent population groups. INTRODUCTION The twenty first century has seen the advent of technical advances in storage, transmission and analysis of information. This has had a profound impact on the field of medicine. However, notwithstanding these advances, various obstacles remain in the world regarding the improvement of human lives through the provision of better health care. The obstacles emanate from the demand (i.e., the problem) as well as the supply (i.e., the solution) side. In some cases, the nature of the problems might not have been correctly identified. In others, a solution to a problem could be known only to a small niche of the global popula- tion. Thus, from the demand perspective, the variety of health care issues can range from the quest for a cure for a rare illness to the inability to successfully implement verifiable preventive measures for a disease that affects particular pockets of the global population. Alternatively, from the supply perspective, the approach to a host of health issues might vary because of fundamental differences in both medical philosophies and organizational policies. The Potential of Crowdsourcing in the Health Care Industry Kaushik Ghosh Lamar University, USA Kabir Sen Lamar University, USA