e-Patients Blog
The blog of the Society for Participatory Medicine. Want to be a contributor?
What Participatory Medicine can learn from a $2,467 phone bill
Fair warning: in the weeks leading up to the October 21 launch of the Journal of Participatory Medicine, just about everything you see here is going to tie in to the society and journal. A fundamental tenet of PM is that patients (ordinary citizens, toi et moi) have...
Participatory Medicine around the world: the Seven Preliminary Conclusions reach India
A Google alert popped up today, saying that a participatory physician in India had cited this blog. Don't we love it when social media let empowering information spread! It's exactly what our founder "Doc Tom" predicted with his now-famous 1995 triangle slides: the...
“HIPAA is SO 1996”
That's a direct quote from Paul Tang, of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, at last week's meeting of the Health IT Policy committee, of which he is vice chair. Dr. Tang was riffing on an e-Patient Dave quote, which I read during my testimony: I want innovation at a...
Give patients (that’s you) access to all their (your) data – so they can help
Cross-posted from my website, ePatientDave.com - the happy home for my new business! I've just returned from Toronto, where I gave the opening keynote at the Medicine 2.0 Congress. It was titled "Gimme My Damn Data," which is an unconventional title for an opening...
Why Electronic Medical Records Still Leak
I hear it time and time again in the e-health industry: "If only we had everyone on an electronic medical record, all of our security and privacy issues would be solved!" Really? Perhaps I should introduce you to a little something psychologists like to call "human...
Participatory Medicine and Patient Research: It’s Gonna be a New World, indeed!
Matthew Herper's post about thalidomide treatment of Myeloma is a good example of how patients will contribute to medical knowledge in the future, and may form a cautionary tale for patients who get involved to this degree in formulating new treatment approaches. I...
Health IT Policy: E-patients want access
What would you say to policymakers who are discussing the implementation of a national health information infrastructure? Here's what I'd say: E-patients want access to tools and information. Many will find what they need, many will not. You can help. Some...
Dennis Quaid on Electronic Medical Records (CBS Sunday Morning)
Actor Dennis Quaid has become an advocate for electronic medical records. In 2007 his 12 day old twins received a massive accidental overdose (10,000 units of heparin instead of 10 units), a near-fatal error that could have been prevented by the kind of bar code...
HIPAA’s Broken Promise
If you hate HIPAA, it's your lucky day. Paul Ohm is handing you ammunition in his article, “Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization.” His argument: our current information privacy structure is a house built on sand. “Computer...
Regina Holliday’s mural is in the BMJ
We've written here before about Regina Holliday (follow her blog), whose husband Fred died June 17. In today's edition of the British Medical Journal, her mural is the picture of the week: Ted Eytan MD took the picture and posted it on Flickr. Today he sent this email...
e-Patients and Participatory Physicians Creating Podcasts
I can barely contain my happiness (oh heck, I'll let it spill) at this: participatory patients and physicians creating educational content, using free internet software tools, and posting it for people to read (free) around the world. I'm a member of the ACOR kidney...
Senator Ted Kennedy was an e-patient
CNN's Elizabeth Cohen makes a compelling case in her column today: How to get Kennedy-esque health care on your budget. Anyone with internet access can gather the information they need to make better health decisions, as e-Patient Dave and Karen Parles did, and refuse...
