Rebecka Sexton of the Center For Innovation at the Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, VA, emailed a great question and I’d like to share it more widely:
We are working on a project here at Carilion on chronic diseases related to Population Health Management related to COPD.
I am specifically working on the education component from a service design perspective and am trying to better understand how COPD patients learn, where their pain points are related to education, what they need education about, etc. The learnings will result in solutions and recommendations to Carilion Clinic. Of course, the social media and technology component enters in because COPD patients are often older and in western Virigina, on Medicaid and many can’t read although they might have phones. I am also considering that education occurs through conversations online too. I am wondering if you can suggest anything for me to look at related to this topic.
My reply:
I’m working on two upcoming reports that will hopefully be useful to you: how family caregivers use the internet, especially for health; how people living with chronic conditions use the internet, especially for health. We will update and expand on our previous reports about these groups:
Family Caregivers Online (2012)
Peer-to-Peer HealthCare (2011)
Chronic Disease and the Internet (2010)
In case you haven’t yet dug into them, I can also offer a summary of Pew Internet’s health research and links to two blogs I contribute to: e-patients.net and susannahfox.com.
You might also look at some of the work that the California HealthCare Foundation, the Center for Care Innovations, and Ted Eytan, MD, of Kaiser have done related to safety net populations. Here are some links to get you started (I searched for “safety net”):
I also recommend looking at some of the work that Ivor Horn, MD, is doing.
Now: let’s help Rebecka: What else would you share with her?
This is a refreshing paper where Dr Topol explains the shift about “doctors teaching their patients”, calling for a new relationship: docere.
It looks like the link is missing, if you meant to include one.
Is this the article?
Dr. Eric Topol on the future of patient/physician relationships
Hi Suzannah,
You’re right, I was referring to a paper that we can found at the following link:
http://www.dotmed.com/legal/print/story.html?nid=20729
… where Dr Topol brings some thoughts about what will be the new relationship between the patient and his doctor. He foresee that will change very quickly in the near future. He sees that the doctors will teach their patients, showing them how to interpret the signs and understand how to improve their health. Their role will become to “providing guidance and wisdom”.
This topic is close to my heart. I was an English teacher at our community college and worked specifically with our remedial level students. Many students were adults who were hoping to go back into the workforce after a job loss. I would strongly advocate that Rebecka talk with teachers—not necessarily health leaders—in order to learn how to best connect with these patients. I’m happy to provide any assistance I can, and overall I wish more of those who are interested in health literacy would team up with basic literacy teachers.
Thanks, Sarah!
For those who don’t know her, Sarah is founder of the Afternoon Nap Society:
http://afternoonnapsociety.blogspot.com/
And a member of the Medicine X ePatient Advisory Panel. Here’s more about her story:
http://medicinex.stanford.edu/2011/12/01/a-patient-patient-sarah-kucharski-writes-about-life-with-fibromuscular-dysplasia/