e-Patients Blog
The blog of the Society for Participatory Medicine. Want to be a contributor?
Alan Greene: “Jumping out of a Plane is 47 Times Safer Than Checking into a Hospital. Unless…”
SPM co-founder and co-chair emeritus Alan Greene MD, of DrGreene.com, just posted this tasty numerical comparison. Remedy, he says? "Working together can be one of the best ways to prevent errors, which is one of the reasons I believe the Society...
The e-Perspectives of e-Patient Dave
Our own e-Patient Dave is featured in an extensive interview with Kim Chandler McDonald, an Australian journalist who is passionate about what she calls the "meHealth movement." Part one of their conversation is posted today to coincide with the TED conversation, "Let...
“Don’t you wanna know??” A proposed PSA about asking questions
Now up on YouTube: You, the patient, are a vital component of medical decision making. Believe it or not, it's worth your effort to find out about your treatment options! This informal FlipCam vignette models a physician encouraging the patient to ask: "Don't you want...
We’ve changed!
We've updated this blog’s design template so it’s more clearly a member of the SPM family. Specifically, we’re now using a color-modified version of our Journal of Participatory Medicine's template, which is a lot slicker and more modern than this blog's previous...
Why Sometimes Health Reporting Should be Done By Journalists
I'm all for citizen journalism, and can even stand the content mills like LiveStrong, who have pimped out their name and brand in order to make a quick buck. But I draw the line with bad reporting and worse, biased representation of the data to prove a point. Case in...
An out-of-office email – from a computer
This has nothing to do with healthcare, but it's the most priceless example I've seen in a long time of Not Customer-Oriented Thinking, and perhaps Scary Workflow, both of which do apply to healthcare sometimes. As a Boston-based traveler, I have United and...
The Green Button idea: support app development with a “Donate My Data” button
Update: The idea has advanced in the comments - be sure to read them. There's a Twitter discussion bubbling right now about a "Green Button" idea that was proposed informally last year at HealthCamp SFBay. Here's a link to our comments about it two months ago. About...
Wendy Station: A community lifts up a priest in need
SPM member John Novack, of the Inspire.com patient communities, submitted this guest post by Wendy Station about another online community -- another great example of patients engaging in their care, supplementing the value they get from their medical professionals by...
What I learned at Health Foo
Just in case anyone is curious: my notes from Health Foo, a meeting held last weekend in Cambridge, MA. It's long, so skim for the 9 lessons if you want a shortcut. What: Foo Camp is an unconference, constructed on the spot by the people who show up, with just a few...
How Facebook Saved My Son’s Life (Slate.com)
"Health is social," says SPM member Phil Baumann, RN (@PhilBaumann) at HealthIsSocial.com. Slate has a dramatic story of how a mother's Facebook network helped spot - rapidly - Kawasaki Disease, a rare auto-immune disease that the family's doctors had initially...
Are patients knights, knaves, or pawns?
Sachin Jain and John Rother's JAMA commentary, "Are Patients Knights, Knaves, or Pawns?" is an article that begs to be shared. The first time I read it I had to stand up, I was so excited -- how can I design a survey to capture these questions?! was my first thought....
JoPM: A pediatric PHR, bidirectional with the EMR, where the family owns the data
I'm short on time so I haven't scoured this paper in the Journal of Participatory Medicine, but even from a skim I'll say it's important news from the front lines. Implementing an Interoperable Personal Health Record in Pediatrics: Lessons Learned at an Academic...