SPM Blog
Search all of the Society for Participatory Medicine website:Search

Care Coordination, The Holy Grail of Good Medicine

by | Oct 24, 2017

Appropriate patient care revolves around a team of individuals that includes the patient, a variety of clinicians and other providers, caretakers and patient advocates. The members of this team must collaborate to ensure that the best possible decisions are made on...

Closing the Gaps in South African Health

by | Jun 2, 2017

Guest post by SPM member Vanessa Carter. See bio at end. In many countries globally, the e-Patient revolution has raised many significant questions about the role of empowered patients in an integrated health system, particularly with expanding access to Information...

Why We Are Losing the Battle Against Infectious Disease

by | Nov 2, 2016

Antibiotics and similar drugs, called antimicrobial agents, have been used successfully for the last 70 years to treat patients who have infectious diseases. However, these drugs have been used so widely and for so long, that the infectious organisms the antibiotics...

Fighting Cybercrime: One Hacker at a Time

by | Jun 1, 2016

Computer Crime is the misuse of a computer or associated electronic networking system in order to commit illegal and unlawful acts. Computer crimes range from the illegal use of the internet to the unlawful accessing of information stored in computer systems.  In...

2016: Opportunities and Challenges in Health Care

by | Jan 12, 2016

In 2016, mHealth technology will occupy center stage in transforming clinical care and clinical research.  Smartphone-linked wearable sensors will turn science fiction into reality as these mobile diagnostic tools provide the in depth information that enables   ...

Alternative Choices for Healthcare: What are the Options?

by | Dec 23, 2015

I was at dinner with friends recently when I noticed that my right thumb was red, swollen and painful.  One of my friends is a biochemist and instructed me to immediately soak the finger in hot water.  I continued our social evening dipping my right thumb in and out...

Misdiagnosis: A Chronic Condition Looking for a Cure

by | Nov 4, 2015

According to a report in the BMJ Quality and Safety Journal, each year in the U.S. approximately 12 million adults or 1 out of 20 patients who seek outpatient medical care, are misdiagnosed in a way that could cause severe harm. These alarming statistics are further...

Happy Birthday Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security

by | Jul 30, 2015

On July 30, 2015, Medicare and Medicaid will celebrate their 50th birthday. In August of 2015 Social Security, celebrates its 80th birthday. Amendments to the Social Security Act (Title XIX) that established guaranteed basic health coverage programs for all elderly,...

No Rhyme or Reason

by | Jul 1, 2015

We have read and heard a lot about the disparities in the cost of care from one hospital or clinic to another. We have read and heard a lot of grumbling about the uneven availability of health care services in this country. Many of us have been outraged to learn that...

The Role of Dignity in Health Care

by | Jun 19, 2015

Every patient wants to be treated with dignity.  However, when you are sitting in a doctor’s exam room, holding together a hospital gown that somehow does not want to completely fit around you, or close properly, it is difficult to feel that you have any dignity. ...

Good Medicine: Choosing What to Do and What Not to Do.

by | Apr 21, 2015

The Choosing Wisely® campaign was launched in 2012 by the ABIM Foundation to encourage patients and clinicians to think about the tests and treatment choices they are implementing or requesting, and to avoid those tests that have proven to be overused and...

Leveraging Technology to Improve Health

by | Mar 24, 2015

Providing apropriate health care is a challenge in remote areas of developing and developed nations, where skilled professional health personnel and facilities are limited. However, e-health, with tools to redesign care models around the common needs of discrete...

Hot Trends in Health Care for 2015

by | Dec 22, 2014

MHealth Over 90% of the world’s population has some type of mobile phone, according to reports from the ITU (International Telecommunications Union and PEW research. mHealth will continue to be a major factor in technology and health in 2015, with new apps that...

Sequencing Your Genome: Opportunities and Challenges

by | Dec 11, 2014

Rapid advances in the technologies giving scientists the ability to analyze, understand and identify the unique characteristics in the genome of every human being are now being translated into clinical applications that are actually prolonging the life of many...

What has happened to the Personal Health Record?

by | Oct 27, 2014

By Nancy B. Finn There has been so much discussion online and in the press about electronic health records and physicians sharing EHR data with patients via such tools as OpenNotes and Blue Button, that the personal health record (PHR) has been lost in the dialogue....

Digital Communication and m-Health in Developing Nations

by | Mar 23, 2014

Approximately 98 % of the world’s population are now owners of cellphones, including many adults in remote, hard to reach locations. This proliferation of mobile devices has the potential to improve our ability to diagnose and track disease; to tackle and...

Donate