e-Patients Blog
The blog of the Society for Participatory Medicine. Want to be a contributor?
More important than Time and Money
Mortality is a fabric more important than money, politics, and belief systems. We all share the same responsibility of health; the only variable is the time in our life we acknowledge it. Rare/undiagnosed consumer behavior is the most intense example of participatory...
We Can Change the US Healthcare System: Your Health, Your Voice
For decades, policymakers, CEOs, politicians, doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, caregivers, and anyone who's been a patient inside or outside a hospital has known one simple fact -- the US healthcare system is broken. Every other first world country has long...
The Killing of Brian Thompson was Awful
The news cycle is moving on, but the killing of Brian Thompson was awful, no matter how one feels about the shortcomings of the American health care system. In a recent New York Times opinion piece, Andrew Witty, president of the UnitedHealth Group, wrote that no one...
Exciting 15th Anniversary Project and Opportunity for Member Engagement
Over the past several months, SPM’s board has engaged in a planning effort, as it approaches the fifteenth anniversary of its creation. Our goal is to assess the state of the Participatory Medicine movement and discern where SPM could have its greatest impact in...
Leveraging Personalized Technology to Motivate Behavior Change
I care for a diverse population of individuals in my primary care practice. It’s hard enough to motivate behavior change in people who have little motivation, but it’s even more challenging when it’s hard to connect with them because of cultural disparities....
Technology, Health Equity, and Participatory Medicine in the Care Management of Sickle Cell Patients
During my doctoral study in nursing practice a couple of years ago, I learned about a champion of nursing informatics, Dr. Nancy Staggers. Dr. Staggers assisted in developing the American Nursing Association’s Scopes and Standards of Practice. She also contributed to...
Driving Transformation: Change Management Strategies for Integrating Participatory Medicine in Healthcare
To implement successful change you must, unequivocally, understand the culture of the environment you are looking to change. Culture and change management are inextricably connected. Culture is a made up of a series of repeated, engrained, and expected behaviors and,...
The Challenge for Medicare Part D Patients: Inability to Utilize Pharmaceutical Programs to Reduce Medication Costs
Medicare Part D patients frequently aren’t allowed to take advantage of pharma pricing offers that reduce medication costs. This can leave patients unable to carry out the agreed treatment plan, which can harm their health outcomes.
Shared Decision-making: Becoming a Better Advocate for your Healthcare
I have a confession to make: I’m not always an effective advocate for my own care. It’s probably helpful for me to put this into context. I have been working in and around healthcare organizations for more than 25 years. I’m a researcher by trade, and worked with...
2024 SPM Update from Board Chair Mary Hennings
Our goal for the Society for Participatory Medicine in 2023 was to expand awareness of participatory medicine ([PM)] and SPM post-Covid and build new insights into the value of PM. We developed two curriculum modules, one on participatory medicine and the other on...
Hey ChatGPT, what’s Participatory Medicine?
I'm working on lots of things about generative AI in healthcare, because among other things, "GenAI" is incredibly empowering and liberating for e-patients. For kicks I decided to ask GPT-4 what it thinks participatory medicine is. Here's its answer. Couldn't have...
Uncle Sam Wants You! FDA’s new Digital Health Advisory Committee needs an e-patient voice!
As the World War I recruiting posters put it, “Uncle Sam Wants You!” In this case, though, it’s not the U.S. Army, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FDA, whose regulations touch 25 cents of every dollar spent by U.S. consumers, is launching a Digital...
