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Patient Advocates on National Boards: Mind the Sausage

by Danny van Leeuwen | Apr 18, 2022 | 0 comments

Engaging patients differs depending on the role. Those on national Boards lead, strategize, advocate, communicate. Adam Thompson is on the Board of NQF. Listen in. Proem As a nurse, I studied individual health. Then I became a student of organizational health. That...

Coaching for Peak Performance and Best Health

by Danny van Leeuwen | Jan 3, 2022 | 0 comments

Coaching, critical to my success in life, art, politics, advocacy. Still need to do my own work & make choices. Listen to a session with one of my coaches, Jan Oldenburg https://health-hats.com/pod153/ or watch it on YouTube https://youtu.be/4TnT6Pk3TgM or read it...

Linnea Olson: An Appreciation of a Giant

by John Novack | Dec 15, 2021 | 4 comments

Pioneers of medical progress are lauded in published articles and by their professional peers. But it is often the patient advocates, particularly those who demanded better treatment, spearheaded clinical trial advances, and bravely took on institutions and standards...

An Introduction to our new Executive Director, Randy Houk

by Randy Houk | Aug 16, 2021 | 3 comments

I am so honored and excited to introduce myself to you, SPM Blog readers, SPM members and friends, and to share with you a preview of coming attractions. By that I mean that since I’ve been the new Executive Director for SPM for a day and a half, my vision for what...

A Romanticised History of SPM

by Ileana Balcu | Nov 23, 2019 | 4 comments

As I was volunteering for SPM, it took years to learn its history and understand where we are, how the Society got created, and why it is what it is. This is not a historical well-documented history of SPM, it’s my imperfect interpretation of its history. Doc Tom...

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn: Social Determinants of Health – My Early Childhood Education and Recent Learnings, Shared at the HealthXL Global Gathering

by Ileana Balcu | Nov 20, 2019 | 1 comment

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn makes a compelling argument at how important it is to think about all aspects of health, not just the healthcare system in her most recent blog post: Social Determinants of Health – My Early Childhood Education and Recent Learnings, Shared at the...

Conservators

by Ileana Balcu | Nov 15, 2019 | 0 comments

My painting teacher, Wes Sherman, calls himself a conservator. He shares paintings, pictures, and tidbits of art history with special attention to artists that inspire him. I learned so much from a year of tidbits shared on Instagram. As I was driving back from the...

Congratulations to the 2019 Doc Tom Award Winners: Susannah Fox & Ileana Balcu

by e-Patient Dave | Oct 31, 2019 | 0 comments

In 2009, the Society for Participatory Medicine was created to continue the work of “Doc Tom” Ferguson (1943-2006), the founder of the e-patient movement and a true visionary who foresaw decades ago that “e-patients” (empowered, engaged, equipped, enabled)...

A million views in 44 days! ClearHealthCosts price transparency TED Talk goes viral

by e-Patient Dave | Apr 5, 2019 | 0 comments

SPM member Jeanne Pinder has spent years crusading for price transparency with her startup ClearHealthCosts. She’s formed partnerships with WHYY in Philadelphia, been on CBS News, won awards for investigative journalism with NOLA.com and Fox 8’s...

Cinderblocks 2018

by Danny van Leeuwen | May 27, 2018 | 0 comments

Thanks to support from SPM Travel Fund I attended Regina Holliday’s Cinderblocks Conference in Grantsville, MD. Still pound-for-pound the best conference going. Several days of local and national presentations about health, public health, and advocacy. Small,...

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