e-Patients Blog
The blog of the Society for Participatory Medicine. Want to be a contributor?
Meaningful Use: The Elephant IS In The Room
Comparative Effectiveness: a comparison of the impact of different options that are available for treating a given medical condition for a particular set of patients. Such studies may compare similar treatments, such as competing drugs, or they may analyze very...
EMRs: “Would you take it if it were FREE?”
Blogger John at the "EMR (EHR) and HIPAA" blog posted a musing that caused my business antennas to twitch. A vigorous discussion has started in the comments. Here's the thing: we're talking about the billions of incentives we're offering providers to adopt EMR...
Next stage in mapping my hospital’s clinical data to PHRs
John Halamka's blog has a new post today announcing that the National Library Medicine has mapped 93% of his hospital's "problem list" codes to the SNOMED CT set of clinical data codes that's widely used. For more info on data formats see our post on data...
Consumer Partnership for eHealth’s thoughts on Meaningful Use
Precursor posts: The "meaningful use" debate (my thoughts); the Markle Foundation's work on the subject Thanks to Josh Seidman of the Information Therapy Blog for steering me to the "meaningful use" work that's been done by the Consumer Partnership for eHealth –...
PLEASE, No More Magical Thinking in HIT!
Magical thinking: the ability to draw conclusions that are based on a person's desire for what reality should be, not necessarily upon what reality actually is. Cargo Cult HIT:Â Concepts in HIT that follow all the apparent precepts and forms of evidence-based...
Participatory Medicine as Revolution! Think Critically! Communicate!
My son graduated from college last year and is now in Nepal, visiting schools and writing about rural education under the Maoist regime. He was excited to tell me, when I visited him recently in India, about how a classic book on education, Pedagogy of the Oppressed...
The Markle Foundation’s work on Meaningful Use
Last night I posted my own thoughts on the definition of "meaningful use," a term that will have significant impact on our next-generation medical records systems. To me it's vital that the term be defined to include full access for you and me (patients) to our own...
“Meaningful Use”: a pivotal definition for new-wave medical records systems
I've struggled with what to say about this subject for two weeks, because I want to "get it right" but it's vast. So I'm giving up any hope of being comprehensive, and I'm just going to say what little I know, and what I think, and let any discussion happen from...
Democracy and Healthcare
At boingboing, Doug Rushkoff posted a video from C-Span of the Senate Hearings on Healthcare Reform, including a half dozen "peaceful and very articulate" protesters "demanding a seat at the table (where 15 witnesses wait to testify, not one representing the...
AHRQ embraces Participatory Medicine.
The President? Not So Much!
Clinicians, the Government, and many other groups are working hard to improve health care quality, but it's a team effort. You can improve your care and the care of your loved ones by taking an active role in your health care. Ask questions. Understand your condition....
Open Access to Publicly-Funded Research: Let Them Eat Cake?
Update on 12/3/14: Nature re-ignited the access debate when they announced that they will make all their articles "free to view" (but if you read the fine print: it makes the "dark social" practice of #icanhazpdf and other access work-arounds illegal). To catch up,...
Stress: the New Normal for Cancer Patients?
Deborah Bell is actively involved in cancer advocacy and manages several online communities for cancer patients, their families, and their friends, having been an ACOR listowner for 11 years, and a listmember for 13. She contributed the following essay: I know a...
