e-Patients Blog
The blog of the Society for Participatory Medicine. Want to be a contributor?
FICO’s new Med Compliance score: #FAIL
This is a cross-post, plus commentary at end, starting with an item today by SPM member Alexandra Albin (@MsAxolotl, a frequent patient herself), from her blog: My life in the Bush of Doctors. It arose from a boiling discussion on the SPM member listserv. To...
NYTimes: Smaller hospitals often perform double CTs unnecessarily
Engaged patients and families, alert: the NY Times reports (here) on a form of unwarranted practice variation that has been exposing elders to excess radiation. Many smaller hospitals have been needlessly exposing their Medicare patients to double CT scans on the same...
Rating the Better Business Bureau
Thanks to SPM member Janice McCallum for this tweet: "Required reading for all HC & doc rating sites: RT @infocommerce: Rating the BBB." Good, concise depiction of the perils of creating an evaluation system.
Two roads ahead: “I fear to be a patient” vs. “Opportunities for Patient-Clinician Partnership”
Treat yourself to 3 minutes of Don Berwick's 2009 speech on patient-centered care, which at a certain point becomes an elegy: Now cheer yourself up with the latest article from the Journal of Participatory Medicine: "The Cancer Supportive Care Model: A...
Do e-Patients Cross the Line With Clinician–Patient Responsibilities?
RA Warrior Kelly Young inquires in a post on Dr. Howard J. Luks’ blog. Dr. Bryan Vartebedian of 33 Charts adds his answer in a post on Better Health. What do you think: Are there lines that patients shouldn’t cross?
Meredith Gould: Why Go Public Now About My Fibro?
Guest blogger Meredith Gould is on Twitter as @meredithgould and @HealthFaith. Over a year ago, I agreed to write about my personal experience with fibromyalgia for a new health and wellness site. The piece wasn't going to be published for a while and although I was...
Cancer Blogger Gets Legal Threat
A British cancer patient who blogged about his unsatisfactory hospital treatment received a threat of legal action from the National Health Service.
Ellen Hoenig Carlson: Patients Beware – 1 Out of 3 Subject to Hospital Error
This guest post by SPM member Ellen Hoenig Carlson was inspired by a study on the prevalence of medical errors, published in the April issue of Health Affairs. Medical errors are one of the nation's leading causes of death and injury. The famed 1999 Institute of...
Justin’s Journey With Brain Cancer, Chronicled Through Facebook and His Blog
Through Facebook and a Caringbridge blog, twenty-six year old Justin Anderson drew friends, family, and now the public into his experience after being diagnosed with brain cancer. His last post in the article is an update from Mount Everest, his latest feat after cancer. CNN reports here.
Peter Schmidt: The virtue of participating in your care – it serves others, too
This guest post by SPM member Peter Schmidt is long overdue. I asked him to write it months ago after discussion on our post Tips for Understanding Studies (Health News Review). Apologies for the delay. If you'd like to submit a guest post, see our guidelines. I was...
Kids Talk About What It’s Like to Have Asthma
It is often difficult for adults to give their doctors full and accurate accounts of their illness. Doing so can be even more of a challenge for kids. Here is an interesting experiment in which adolescents were given video cameras to capture their experience with...
Chilmark: HealthVault continues to build, Google Health still useful
John Moore at Chilmark Research has published another of his characteristically useful and insightful updates on health IT as he sees it. It's here. A word about Chilmark: when I was considering how to make a new career, in healthcare, I noticed a gaping hole in this...
