by Charlie Smith | Sep 22, 2010
The Journal of Participatory Medicine (JoPM), the online peer-reviewed, open access publication of the Society for Participatory Medicine, has released new content for its 2010 volume. The journal’s mission is to transform the culture of medicine from a delivery...
by Charlie Smith | Sep 17, 2009
Matthew Herper’s post about thalidomide treatment of Myeloma is a good example of how patients will contribute to medical knowledge in the future, and may form a cautionary tale for patients who get involved to this degree in formulating new treatment...
by Charlie Smith | Jul 22, 2009
The nascent field of Participatory Medicine is currently in the “debating and defining” stage.   It has been tentatively defined by the steering group of the Journal of Participatory Medicine as: …a cooperative model of health care that encourages...
by Charlie Smith | Jun 16, 2009
Tom Davenport, in a Harvard Business Publishing Blog post, does a nice job of discussing the merging of “Health 2.0”, the aggregate of online communities, wiki’s, bloggers, and tweets, with the role of traditional medical providers. He asks whether,...
by Charlie Smith | Oct 28, 2007
A big “thumbs up” to Toby Cosgrove, CEO of Cleveland Clinic for being the champion of “My Chart”, a program that allows patients, through password protected access, to obtain information from their own chart. As patients become...
by Charlie Smith | Oct 22, 2007
A study in the October issue of Pediatrics found that allowing patients to e mail their physicians improved their ease of access and their perception of the quality of care they received. Families who used this system also reported that they had a better understanding...
by Charlie Smith | Oct 17, 2007
Today I heard a story on NPR about a new “superbug” that caused ear infections in children that were resistant to all currently recommended antibiotics used to treat this infection. This reminded me that antibiotics are being over used. This is, in part,...
by Charlie Smith | Oct 11, 2007
Joe Shapiro’s piece on patients turning to the internet was well done and interesting. Our thanks to Susannah Fox for her contribution to this article, and for her work on the survey about patients with chronic condititions who use the internet. I particularly...
by Charlie Smith | Oct 8, 2007
Recently, Microsoft Corporation announced the launch of Health Vault, a new, free service that allows anyone who needs an individual’s health information to view it online. While this is a great idea and is sorely needed to reduce health care costs and reduce...
by Charlie Smith | Oct 2, 2007
One of the greatest benefits of the internet is its empowerment of patients by providing them with health information. We all know that doctors are human and make mistakes. Furthermore, the office practice of medicine is often as much an art as a science, so a...
by Charlie Smith | Jun 15, 2007
I have puzzled over this question many times. Today, I found a web site called “The New Medicine” that was based on PBS documentary that has a lot of balanced content about the role of CAM in patient care. I think it is worth a look! -Charlie Smith...
by Charlie Smith | Jun 14, 2007
David Weinberger, a fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center, speaks eloquently on the way digitization of information is changing the way we define knowledge. In a recent presentation he made at a Library of Congress conference he argues that the increasingly universal...
by Charlie Smith | May 17, 2007
In the discussion of patient empowerment, it is worth considering how much care the patient should take on their own shoulders, and when they should turn to their doctor for help. Physicians often do more than would be required if the doctor and the patient was...
by Charlie Smith | May 17, 2007
In this first post, I’d like to address the “e Patient world” and what you may expect to see develop in this area in the future. E Patients are those patients who are discovering ways to use the incredibly powerful tools and information available on...
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