by Susannah Fox | Jul 1, 2011
I admit it: I’m not a gamer. But I am competitive. Plus I love micro-fitness challenges and I’ve read (and believe the lessons of) The Decision Tree. So when Jen McCabe described Health Month, I was intrigued. It’s a game in which you choose the...
by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. | Jun 25, 2011
Like so many attempts before it — drkoop.com and RevolutionHealth.com to name just two — Google has found that implementing personal health records in a meaningful way is really, really hard. So hard, in fact, that it has given up and is shuttering its...
by e-Patient Dave | Jun 24, 2011
On this blog we try to understand and explain how the world has changed and is changing, with the goal of helping everyone – policy people, patients, clinicians, administrators, businesses – optimize for the world as it changes. Nowhere is that more...
by e-Patient Dave | Jun 23, 2011
e-Patients who want to collaborate with their physicians, and be responsible for their medical decisions, need to clearly understand what constitutes good evidence. It’s not always easy. Now Richard Smith, a 25 year editor of the British Medical Journal, has...
by e-Patient Dave | Jun 18, 2011
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...
by e-Patient Dave | Jun 7, 2011
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...
by e-Patient Dave | Jun 3, 2011
On the evening of June 7th, SPM member and extraordinary painter Regina Holliday is leading a “Walking Gallery” in Washington, in which dozens of us will wear jackets on which she’s painted one of her visual allegories about healthcare today. She...
by e-Patient Dave | Jun 3, 2011
SPM member Sue Woods, of Oregon Health and Science University and the Veterans’ Administration, has posted a terrific response to CNN.com’s “Ten dumb things you do at the doctor’s office” and to our discussion of it here. Titled Dumb...
by Susannah Fox | May 25, 2011
Here’s my simple definition of peer-to-peer healthcare: Patients and caregivers know things — about themselves, about each other, about treatments — and they want to share what they know to help other people. Technology helps to surface and organize...
by e-Patient Dave | May 24, 2011
One of the first posts on this blog that got wider attention was in March 2009: RateMDs.com: Medical Justice’s approach is “repulsive”: …a company called Medical Justice wants to help doctors avoid consumer ratings, by getting patients to sign an agreement...
by e-Patient Dave | May 13, 2011
The comments below add significant thoughts to what I said – be sure to read them. A lot of people are intrigued with using “cloud” applications and storage for personal health data. This week we’re seeing what I think is the final nail in the...
by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. | Apr 12, 2011
While doing some research the other day on personal health records (PHRs), I came across this article, describing Revolution Health’s announcement — without much media attention — about dropping its PHR at the beginning of 2010. (Disclosure: I worked...
by Susannah Fox | Apr 4, 2011
To me, there are two types of breaking news in health care: the macro and the micro. Macro health news breaks when there is a natural disaster, a scientific breakthrough, or a new twist in a policy debate (see: “ACOs”). I read up on the facts and try to...
by Cheryl Greene | Mar 25, 2011
Three years ago our family was faced with a difficult decision. What is the best care for our mother? We toured all the possible local options, but when it came down to it, there was only one facility* willing to take my mother due to the advanced state of her...
by Susannah Fox | Mar 24, 2011
On March 11, the White House hosted an event to mark National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. The event was livestreamed from whitehouse.gov and is archived on YouTube: I have written before about the unique nature of conferences concerning...
by Susannah Fox | Mar 23, 2011
Updated on 3/24/2011: I recently met the director of a community health organization A. Toni Young, founder and executive director of the Community Education Group here in Washington, DC. She has big dreams for harnessing the power of her clients’ health data...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 22, 2011
This Thursday at the headquarters of the British Medical Journal in London, an important announcement will be made about patients’ rights to be actively involved in decisions about their treatment. Below is the press release about it. The subject is shared...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 21, 2011
Readers interested in health IT issues will want to know about today’s webcast at 1:00 ET, and the policy issue described here by SPM’s policy chair David Harlow (Twitter @HealthBlawg), from the SPM members listserv: There’s a significant announcement out...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 16, 2011
Guest post by SPM member Regina Holliday. Perhaps because my world-view is shaped by the escapades and explanations of active little boys, I often speak of super-heroes in relation to health care. I listen daily to tales of poisonous spider bites, DNA mutations and...
by Susannah Fox | Mar 10, 2011
It’s hard to say this without sounding like I’m bragging, but that’s not going to stop me: I’m going to the White House tomorrow to talk about Pew Internet Project’s latest research on peer-to-peer healthcare. The White House Office of...
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