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Health Data is Useful… if it Informs Conversations

Dr. Roni Zeiger, MD is currently Chief Health Strategist at Google where he has helped create and lead Google Health.  He continues to see patients on occasional evenings and weekends at a local urgent care center.  Roni earned his MD at Stanford and completed his...

What my mom takes to the doctor

I was talking to Mom (age 80) the other night, and she mentioned a document she updates regularly. She prints a fresh copy to take to every doctor visit, so they’ll always have it up to date and won’t have to go digging. We’ve never discussed topics...

A Patient-Centric Definition of Participatory Medicine

Participatory Medicine is a movement in which networked patients shift from being mere passengers to responsible drivers of their health, and in which providers encourage and value them as full partners. This new definition devised by the board of the Society of...

Librarians and ePatients as Partners

I am thrilled to bring another guest post, this time from Luke Rosenberger, a medical librarian who has forcefully embraced social media & participatory medicine, as you’ll see. Libraries & librarians have always held a special place in helping other...

NPSF’s magnificent Universal Patient Compact

Updated 3/12/2014 with new links at bottom. One of my personal pleasures in the first year of the Society for Participatory Medicine has been discovering people in other parts of the “patient culture” who’ve been doing wonderful, empowering,...

E-patients.net = suggested reading

Gretchen Berland is one of my heroes, so I was thrilled when she asked me to give a guest lecture at Yale. Then I read the syllabus for “Media & Medicine in Modern America.” It’s too cool to keep to myself… The organizing themes for the...

Who are you, DarthMed?

Once the world’s information was put into context, we looked beyond the keyboard, and collectively shifted to people. We focused on social context by asking questions like: Who are you? How are we connected? What is on your mind? What matters to you? Making the...

Video: If Air Travel Worked Like Health Care

Back in September, Jonathan Rauch of the National Journal wrote a terrific (fact-based!) send-up of our archaic, arcane, not-customer-centric healthcare system, titled “If Air Travel Worked Like Health Care.” I wish I’d known about it then, but I...

My Father’s Medical Record Fiasco

Guest post by Alan Viars (@Aviars), CEO of Videntity Systems, Inc. This past year my father required open heart surgery. This is a short article about the hurdles we (his family) encountered along the way. I’ve changed the names, because it is not my intention to...

What’s in your… bucket queue?

Prolog: Cheryl said she wasn’t sure whether this post belonged on the e-patient blog. It sure does: When lives are prolonged by medical success, we get to do all kinds of things we wouldn’t have. It also belongs here because this short little piece...

2010: The Year of Open Streams & Fax Machines

I started writing this post while watching a livestream of the LeWeb09 conference in Paris and finished it while watching a livestream of TEDxSV. Open Streams are of many kinds and shapes. They are completely changing how we consume information, news &...

Terrorized By The ‘War On Cancer’

How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America’s Ability To Make Sound Healthcare Decisions with apologies to Zbigniew Brzezinski In his original article about the war on terror Brzezinski argues that the use of the term War on Terror was intended to generate a...

Woman Loses Health Insurance Due to Facebook

Imagine a world you live in where every insurance offering is accompanied by a creepy set of Big Brother-like ongoing investigations into your life. Everything will be used as evidence against you. Yes, even your Facebook profile. That world is here. Well, not right...

The Pew Internet/Health FAQ

A big part of my job, and one I love, is answering questions, mostly from reporters. Sometimes I have just the data or insight someone needs, often I recommend someone else. Here is a sample of frequently-asked questions and my current answers. Please add your...

A Mission 2 End Diabetes

I like to invite all students, teachers, researchers, and entrepreneurs within the ‘earshot’ of this announcement to ‘listen’ carefully. If you have an idea (conceptual or a working model) of a way to help educate, treat, and/or diagnosis diabetes in rural areas with...

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