e-Patients Blog
The blog of the Society for Participatory Medicine. Want to be a contributor?
Quality of Care & e-Patients
JAMA has an interesting Patient Page on quality of care. The definitions of e-Patients and Participatory Medicine mention or point to quality of care. Are we talking about the same thing? NOT AT ALL! If the patient page of JAMA represents the official position of the...
41% of Adults are “Activated Patients”
The Center for Studying Health System Change has released another information-packed report, How Engaged Are Consumers in Their Health and Health Care, and Why Does It Matter. Â The researchers created a "Patient Activation Measure" and apparently 41% of adults are...
All MRIs Are Not Created Equal
Gina Kolata's must-read article, "The Scan That Didn't Scan," in last week's Science Times points out vast differences in the quality of MRIs as well as vast differences in the expertise of the radiologists who interpret them. Patients need to understand this, because...
Overtreatment – sometimes against our will
Here's an unpleasant aspect of patient empowerment: we need to be aware that sometimes our providers will heap treatments on us that aren't necessary - and, sometimes, treatments we've specifically said we don't want. Paul Grundy MD, chair of PCPCC, had this happen...
One Doctor’s Prescription for Fixing U.S. Healthcare
John Grohol initially posted this in our "Found on the Net" sidebar, but I clicked through, and I think it's important enough that it belongs as a main post. (Short doesn't imply sidebar.) I'm particularly drawn to "equal rights for physicians," something my gut has...
Extending Your Healthcare Dollar
50 Ways To Squeeze Value From Your Healthcare Dollar Without Killing Yourself. An interesting list from one of the main websites specialized in frugal living. There is not much about patient empowerment but there are many interesting bits of advice. The comments...
Learning from medical errors
As an empowered patient I'm willing to go to the ends of the earth to help the medical community get beyond the famed "culture of blame," so everyone involved can learn from errors. Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center had a wrong site incident, and responded...
Crowdsourcing the Definition of Participatory Medicine
"Crowdsourcing: the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call." Jeff Howe Or in other words Participatory Outsourcing. There is clearly a growing...
Blogging to Save a Father’s Life
Yesterday, RocketBoom founder Andrew Baron took to the blogosphere to round up support in his efforts to get a rare drug approved for use in treating his father. His father was diagnosed with a very bad form of cancer called multiple myeloma and his dad's doctor...
Complex Patient Choices on Life or Death
“There are certain choices patients make that I have never understood, choices that from my perspective as a doctor seem to undermine their very chances for survival. Or at least undermine the efforts doctors, nurses and even complete strangers make on their behalf....
Spellchecker
"I noticed that my spellchecker doesn’t recognize 'subprime'. […] I am guessing that will be remedied soon. "in the Beginning" Stephen J. Dubner; 09/30/2008 This is so true! Just like e-patient and participatory medicine! None of these terms have made their way into...
“When physicians are ready to promote patient empowerment / engagement, what do we want them to do?”
Ted Eytan has a post by this name. It's a question asked of him by Ann Barber, MD. I couldn't be happier! His post and the comments have gotten lively. I posted about Chapter 2 of e-Patients: how they can help us heal health care, which includes the seven preliminary...
