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The Power of Rare Disease Patients

by | Feb 25, 2012

I’m honored to post this essay by Wendy White, Founder & President of Siren Interactive: Thanks to the Pew Internet Project, we have a lot of data about ePatients. These empowered, engaged and educated patients (and families) are helping to bring about a...

Health, Technology, and Communities of Color

by | Feb 16, 2012

Serendipity brought me two opportunities this week to present Pew Internet’s data on communities of color and young people, particularly as it relates to health. On Wednesday I was a guest of the Federal HIV/AIDS Web Council and on Thursday I spoke at a meeting...

What’s your health care dream?

by | Feb 3, 2012

  #whatifhc in #TheWalkingGallery   Note: This is two posts in one — scroll down to read Regina Holliday’s point of view. From Susannah Fox: For me, Twitter is a free-wheeling space where people dance with ideas. Anyone is welcome to jump into...

The Rise of the e-Patient

by | Jan 19, 2012

Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project,  presented this wonderful overview of the Project’s health findings at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, CA, on January 12. The Rise of the e-Patient View more presentations from Pew Research...

For some people, it’s still 1994

by | Dec 8, 2011

Here’s a question which inspired me today, received via email from Christie Silbajoris,  director of NC Health Info: My library is rethinking its provision of services to the public.  We’ve got a history of going beyond what the average academic health sciences...

World AIDS Day

by | Dec 1, 2011

Mark Senak’s post, “World AIDS Day: The Past Cannot Be the Future,” inspired me to write an epic comment about different perspectives on illness and care delivery, so I adapted and expanded it to share here: I recently read Susan Sontag’s two...

Health Info Have-Nots

by | Oct 18, 2011

I just published a quick take on who doesn’t gather health information online, including the stark finding that three-quarters of U.S. adults who have less than a high school education say they do not get health information online. One survey question I cited...

Conference Season: Patients and Caregivers Welcome

by | Oct 4, 2011

We are deep into the fall conference season. One of my favorite trends is the increasing rate of inclusion of patients and caregivers at health care events, on stage or in the audience. The California HealthCare Foundation was a pioneer in this regard. Patients 2.0,...

Peer-to-peer Healthcare at Medicine 2.0

by | Sep 23, 2011

I was honored to give the closing keynote at the Medicine 2.0’11 Congress at Stanford. In preparation for it, I gathered all of the Pew Internet Project’s recent research on social networks, smartphones, and health communications. Then I added stories from...

When Patients Band Together: Far From a Disgrace

by | Sep 8, 2011

When it comes to news sites, I love scanning readers’ comments as much as the original articles. Comments are an unfiltered feed, a window into public opinion (in other words, catnip for someone like me). One thread caught my eye recently. Ron Winslow wrote a...

Help Me Choose: Sessions at Medicine 2.0

by | Aug 31, 2011

In 2008, I asked for this community’s help in choosing which sessions to attend at the Chronic Disease Care conference sponsored by the California HealthCare Foundation. I loved the input I got and wrote 3 posts on what I learned about spreading improvement in...

Mind the Gap: Peer-to-peer Healthcare

by | Aug 1, 2011

Update: My notes are now online: Mind the Gap: Peer-to-peer HealthCare. The newest material is in the section entitled, “Getting Past the Early-Adopter Stage” — roadblocks, opportunities, and beacons for change (patient leaders, clinician leaders,...

The e-Perspectives of e-Patient Dave

by | Jul 27, 2011

Our own e-Patient Dave is featured in an extensive interview with Kim Chandler McDonald, an Australian journalist who is passionate about what she calls the “meHealth movement.” Part one of their conversation is posted today to coincide with the TED...

What I learned at Health Foo

by | Jul 19, 2011

Just in case anyone is curious: my notes from Health Foo, a meeting held last weekend in Cambridge, MA. It’s long, so skim for the 9 lessons if you want a shortcut. What: Foo Camp is an unconference, constructed on the spot by the people who show up, with just a...

Are patients knights, knaves, or pawns?

by | Jul 15, 2011

Sachin Jain and John Rother’s JAMA commentary, “Are Patients Knights, Knaves, or Pawns?” is an article that begs to be shared.  The first time I read it I had to stand up, I was so excited — how can I design a survey to capture these...

Information spreads like wildfire, right or wrong

by | Jul 11, 2011

I am as interested in the negative effects of technology as I am in the positive, so I recently dove into a book by Seth Mnookin: The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear, which focuses on vaccines. His summary of the Information Age challenge...

Alpha Geeks in Health Care

by | Jul 6, 2011

Here’s how tech guru Tim O’Reilly describes his work: So often, signs of the future are all around us, but it isn’t until much later that most of the world realizes their significance. Meanwhile, the innovators who are busy inventing that future live...

Health Month, the game

by | Jul 1, 2011

I admit it: I’m not a gamer. But I am competitive. Plus I love micro-fitness challenges and I’ve read (and believe the lessons of) The Decision Tree. So when Jen McCabe described Health Month, I was intrigued. It’s a game in which you choose the...

Peer-to-peer Healthcare: Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. Obvious.

by | May 25, 2011

Here’s my simple definition of peer-to-peer healthcare: Patients and caregivers know things — about themselves, about each other, about treatments — and they want to share what they know to help other people. Technology helps to surface and organize...

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