e-Patients Blog
The blog of the Society for Participatory Medicine. Want to be a contributor?
Nancy Finn: Changes to Health Delivery Are Key to Reducing Costs
Guest blogger, e-patient and SPM member Nancy Finn takes on the tough topic of how to reduce the cost of health care delivery. With all the talk this week about Obamacare and whether or not the Supreme Court will declare the law constitutional, partially...
The BRCA patents, the Supreme Court and Empowered Healthcare Consumers
SPM member Eve Harris, on her "Healthy Piece of My Mind" blog, has a potent post on yesterday's Supreme Court decision about the BRCA1 and BRCA2 patents held by a private company. The patents have restricted patients' and families' access to screening tests. Excerpt:...
What happens when an engaged consumer tries to help control costs?
Since November I've been blogging on my personal site about what happens when a patient tries to help control costs, in my cost cutting edition posts. Most recently I noted that this stuff takes time, especially since our glorious American healthcare system seems to...
“People without medical background can understand if you tell it in a language they understand”
In the latest post in our Why I Joined SPM series, guest blogger Dr. Nabin Sapkota shares his story of discovering that patients like to be taught what's going on, and how this replaced what he'd lost when he gave up doing teaching rounds. Every "why I joined" post is...
SPM member Akiva Zablocki: “Step One to an Informed Decision: Convene an Expert Panel”
It's terrific that so many members of the Society for Participatory Medicine are contributing guest posts that share their e-patient story or how they came to know and care about participatory medicine. This one, by Akiva Zablocki (@iPatchMan), is extraordinary, both...
Getting copies of your medical records: rule & resource info from CDT
The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) is one of my favorite sources for accurate information on the rules about our rights to access our medical records. Their wizard Deven McGraw is widely recognized as one of the best authorities anywhere on HIPAA - the 1996...
#firstMRI is a project! Tweetchat tonight
Update 3/23: here's the transcript of the event. Remember December's post about the #firstMRI idea, to help poor unsuspecting patients prepare for the "monkeys banging on garbage cans" experience? It's a project now! Join us for tonight's #s4pm tweetchat at 8 ET / 5...
Former NEJM editors on the corruption of American medicine (NY Times)
This is longer than it might be, because this point is essential. If this subject is familiar to you, skip to the heading "Today's update." As we said in December, an e-patient essential is sorting out what writings to trust, whether we find them online or in print....
Visualize This: An e-Patient’s Medical Life History
The following was originally Katie McCurdy's response to the excellent, ongoing discussion about the future for self-tracking. It's too good not to elevate to a post of its own -- Susannah. ____________________________________________________________________________Â ...
The Government’s Assault on Women’s Health
I'm a little confused... I'm not sure where the U.S. Constitution guaranteed the government's right to interfere with the doctor/patient relationship. Nowhere in this historic document could I find anything about the government's right to dictate how women's health...
Hugo Campos: compelling 3 minute video (Medicine X promo video)
Beyond question, the "gimme my damn data" rock star of 2012 is ICD patient Hugo Campos. (See our past posts about him, including his TEDx Cambridge talk and other media coverage.) I just learned about this well produced short version of his story and his call to...
“Physicians, Patients and the Internet”: good article in Physicians Practice magazine
Associate Editor Aubrey Westgate has a good, solid new piece in the March Physicians Practice magazine about interacting with patients who get engaged with their care by seeking health information on the internet. SPM member Trisha Torrey of Every Patient's Advocate...