by e-Patient Dave | Apr 17, 2009
A few items before I head off to the day job: As my hospital’s CIO John Halamka posted Monday, we had a concall Wednesday night. He, Roni Zeiger of Google, my physician Danny Sands and I spoke for an hour about this entire broad topic....
by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. | Apr 14, 2009
It is absolutely amazing to watch the unfolding saga the moment a real patient enters real data into Google Health from his hospital’s medical records. The way the marketing folks tell us, this is a seamless exercise that gets you up and running on personal...
by e-Patient Dave | Apr 5, 2009
From my wife: I truly don’t understand why human medicine finds it is so difficult to put medical records on the computer. Veterinary medicine has had that ability at least for the last 10-15 years. An example is the Idexx Cornerstone Veterinary Practice...
by e-Patient Dave | Apr 1, 2009
This is a complex post, so don’t jump to any conclusions. Two weeks ago (gad, was it that long?) I asked you to think about something for a few days: Imagine that for all your life, and your parents’ lives, your money had been managed by other people who had extensive...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 30, 2009
IBM’s “Smarter Planet” blog has picked up e-Patient Dave’s post A Thousand Points of Pain, about how enmeshed and entangled our healthcare system has become, and the implications for people who want to design a transformed system. Dave added a...
by Gilles Frydman | Mar 23, 2009
This is the third post in the unfortunate series about conflicts of interest. You must be kiddin’! That’s all Scott Reuben, MD, the doctor Scientific American calls “a medical Madoff”, had to say after putting the last two handful of nails into...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 18, 2009
I want you to think about something for a few days. Imagine that for all your life, and your parents’ lives, your money had been managed by other people who had extensive training and licensing. Imagine that all your records were in their possession, and you...
by Sarah Greene | Mar 15, 2009
The wonderfully helpful NYTimes series Patient Money reported Friday on the topic of Opaque Inc., as posted recently here by Gilles. The article, Bargaining Down the Medical Bills, gives practical advice about how to negotiate your doctor, lab, and hospital fees. The...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 12, 2009
We’ve been known to have our minds blown, but this one started as an eye-popper and got better. A friend writes: “Even the DoD is getting in the act: Patients urged to take charge of their care.” But holy cow, there was a LOT more behind that...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 4, 2009
At the Connected Health conference in Boston last year, where I spoke with my physician Danny Sands, I heard the visionary Clay Shirky speak. He gets it in spades about patient empowerment. In passing, he cited one of the most absurd ideas I’ve ever heard :–)...
by e-Patient Dave | Feb 27, 2009
Update January 2011: Be sure to read the comments, which have links to many valuable resources. This item today, from MedPage, underscores the importance of having our eyes open about the human frailties in the research process that our lives can depend on. ORLANDO,...
by e-Patient Dave | Feb 21, 2009
At the 25th annual TEPR+ conference in Palm Springs on Feb. 2, Alan Greene (DrGreene.com) gave the opening address. It was inspiring – I wish we had a video of it. Too bad so many attendees opted to skip the keynotes and fly into town late! Like, did you guys think...
by e-Patient Dave | Jan 18, 2009
This topic isn’t directly in our wheelhouse here in the e-patient movement (“empowered, engaged, equipped and enabled”), but as I continue one patient’s odyssey in learning about healthcare, a discussion on Paul Levy’s blog has taught me...
by e-Patient Dave | Jan 15, 2009
E-patients, this is a call to action. Now. I want you to go express yourself on Paul Levy’s blog. Most readers of health policy blogs know what a costly, inefficient mess healthcare in America has become. Paul Levy would like the people in his business to work...
by Christine Gray | Jan 13, 2009
My quest for a second qualified opinion on an abnormal mammogram (microcalcifications) began in October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Two days before the end of the year, a sharp surgical resident put an end to the spin. The solution was simple – and not high tech....
by Christine Gray | Dec 23, 2008
Pass the Valium! Previously on e-Patients.net I recounted the crazy-making quest for a second opinion on an abnormal mammogram (microcalicifications) as per the advice of New York Times health columnist Jane E. Brody, a breast cancer survivor. The gynecologist who...
by Susannah Fox | Dec 17, 2008
NIH is sponsoring a summit this week, The Science of Eliminating Health Disparities. I heard about it from Mary Brophy Marcus’s article in USA Today and I found this press release online, but I haven’t seen other coverage of the event. If you spot stories...
by e-Patient Dave | Nov 29, 2008
Paul Grundy MD, of IBM, chair of PCPCC, is interviewed in the current Crain’s Benefits Outlook, a business publication about employee benefit programs. This quote alone is worth the price of admission: I can buy a damn good amputation for my diabetic, but what I...
by e-Patient Dave | Nov 28, 2008
A lot of effort and study is going into improving healthcare and untangling its cost structure. So methinks it’s nearly criminal when someone blocks adoption of a treatment that’s better, especially when it’s also less expensive. Case in point, from...
by Gilles Frydman | Nov 20, 2008
What’s wrong with this picture? While continuing to search for information regarding the collective statistical illiteracy issue covered a couple of days ago, I found a brand new article in the New England Journal of Medicine. As an exercise I decided to...
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