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Individuals’ Rights to Their Health Information: The Federales Awaken

by David Harlow | Jan 12, 2016

A long time ago (in internet years), the original HIPAA regulations were promulgated. (The final Privacy Rule was published in 2000.) They’ve been tweaked and updated over the years, most notably in the “mega-reg” promulgated a few years back in...

When no other feedback channels exist, the Patient Advocate becomes a single point of failure

by e-Patient Dave | Dec 18, 2015

This blog welcomes guest posts from SPM members on relevant topics. One of our Society’s newest members, Susan Cournoyer, is a tech industry analyst, and is familiar with the concept of systems that are well designed or weakly designed, e.g. with a “single...

Sep 26 – Patient Summit on Diagnosis in Alexandria, VA

by Ileana Balcu | Sep 8, 2015

To all in the Washington/Baltimore/northern Virginia area (and elsewhere if you care to travel!): The patient committee of the Society for Improved Diagnosis in Medicine would like to invite you to our second annual Patient Summit on Diagnosis. The summit is part of...

Guest post by Duncan Cross: I Sent This Letter To A Doctor Who Pissed Me Off

by Ileana Balcu | Jun 3, 2015

Ordinarily we limit guest posts to current members of SPM, but this is an extraordinary case. Duncan Cross’s post illustrates so many aspects of how empowered, engaged, activated patients view their lives, and how important it is to have an effective...

The Doctor as Patient

by David Harlow | Jun 23, 2014

Charlotte Yeh is the Chief Medical Officer of AARP Services, and has had a long career in government and as a practicing emergency physician. (Our paths first crossed years ago when we were both working on pre-hospital care reform in Massachusetts.) She wrote a piece...

The Iceberg Waiting for Your Health Care Data

by David Harlow | May 1, 2014

The Heartbleed web security exploit was first publicized several weeks ago. In the time since then, numerous web-based services have let their users know (some more clearly than others) whether and how their data security was compromised by this OpenSSL flaw that has...