e-Patients Blog
The blog of the Society for Participatory Medicine. Want to be a contributor?
American Heart Association journal announces new Patient Viewpoints
The American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes has announced a new Patient or Caregiver Viewpoint section in the journal. Viewpoints will be authored by patients or their caregivers and will discuss the patient's experience of...
OpenNotes in the news: Now 3 million patients – and mental health, too
We've often written here about the OpenNotes study (here's a site search), which documented that when patients can see what their clinicians wrote, the sky doesn't fall; instead, all kinds of good things happen. This is game-changing, even world-changing for how we...
An important moment in our movement (JoPM article): The evolving language of patient engagement
An article of importance to our movement appeared in June, in our Journal of Participatory Medicine. It's an analysis of twelve years of literature about patient engagement, documenting what words people used, what context they appeared in, and (perhaps most...
Researcher seeks patient input: what should a stent decision aid include?
Preface by e-Patient Dave: We have often written here (see posts) about Shared Decision Making, in which patients are engaged in choosing among treatment options. A key method is to give patients a "decision aid" (DA) - a document or video that explains the options,...
Let’s crowdsource what a “good” medical record tool for patients is (and list some products)
Ah, social media. On Facebook a couple of hours ago, Swedish SPM member Sara Riggare posted: Responses were quick and robust: "Web MD has an app that you can download that I use. I find it pretty useful." -Â Mark Burek "That's a sticky question. I tried Caresync ([SPM...
Recently in JoPM: Jessie Gruman tribute, book review on asthma
We don't tell you often enough here of new pieces in JoPM, our Journal of Participatory Medicine. Of course you can subscribe to the journal on their site, but I hope to specifically point things out here. (See also our past posts in the JoPM category.) Here are two...
Communicating the experience of illness in the digital age
At 9am on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014, Stanford Medicine X will host a discussion led by Pamela Ressler, Colleen Young, Meredith Gould and me about the power and pitfalls of people sharing their health experiences online. We are "flipping" the panel by sharing resources and...
Susannah Fox is leaving Pew Research
I know many of our readers already saw this, but, from her personal blog: In one way, I'm sad to see that her work at Pew is over. In her 14 years there, time after time her work made clear what was actually happening as people use the internet in pursuing health....
Guest post by Zack Berger, MD, PhD: The pledge of the patient-centered physician
This blog welcomes guest posts from SPM members on relevant topics. Zack Berger of Johns Hopkins (@ZackBergerMDPhD) is highly committed to participatory medicine, and as this post shows, his book Talking To Your Doctor gets right down into the how-to's. (More on this...
Jessie Christine Gruman, 1953-2014
I'm saddened (really saddened, as I write this) to report that one of the titans of our movement, Jessie Gruman, died unexpectedly yesterday at home in New York. She had long been sick, but the demise was sudden. In addition to the mountain of work she produced as...
Keeping Patients in the Dark: SIIPC14
Several SPM members were in attendance at the recent SIIPC14 conference at Dartmouth, where the ongoing work on healthcare system transformation  has been the source of much great content on e-patients.net over the years. Casey Quinlan - yes, yours truly - has...
The Doctor as Patient
Charlotte Yeh is the Chief Medical Officer of AARP Services, and has had a long career in government and as a practicing emergency physician. (Our paths first crossed years ago when we were both working on pre-hospital care reform in Massachusetts.) She wrote a piece...
