by e-Patient Dave | Mar 11, 2011
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. Sherlock Holmes, in Scandal in Bohemia I’ve been reading Jack Wennberg’s new book Tracking Medicine, which is about his...
by e-Patient Dave | Feb 25, 2011
In December we posted about practice variation and shared decision making (SDM), a field of research originated at Dartmouth decades ago and best known as publisher of the Dartmouth Atlas, which describes the amazing amount of unexplained variation in how many doctors...
by e-Patient Dave | Dec 20, 2010
Headline and body edited Oct 6, 2013: the original post talked about “practice variation,” but that was bad wording. The problem is unwarranted practice variation: variation that, when studied, is not warranted by actual differences between cases....
by Casey Quinlan | Oct 13, 2018
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that yours truly got the chance to attend the annual Cochrane Colloquium in Edinburgh in September this year, thanks to a travel stipend from SPM, a #PatientsIncluded bursary from Cochrane UK, the hosts of the 2018...
by Susan Woods | Mar 15, 2016
Decades ago, there began a rigorous effort to tackle health care problems by focusing on science, improvement and measurement. A prominent driver of all things related to practice betterment has been The Institute of Healthcare Improvement, or IHI. Led by pediatrician...
by e-Patient Dave | Jan 10, 2012
Edited a few minutes after the original post. Over on the Harvard Business Review blog a post yesterday is stirring up discussion. I hope well-informed SPM members can help shed some light in the comments there, citing as many specifics as you can. (As I compiled the...
by e-Patient Dave | Sep 23, 2011
In the past year I’ve come to see medical decision making as one of the key crucibles in which participatory medicine plays out. We’ve blogged several times about shared decision making (SDM), and by its nature it requires participatory thinking. A new...
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 | Dec 12, 2010
All, if you have a story where you were affected by being involved (or not) in a medical decision, please see my request at “Help Me Represent You” below. Same if you have points you want me to bring to this seminar’s attention. I feel extremely fortunate...
by e-Patient Dave | Sep 30, 2009
As promised yesterday, here is Amy Romano’s guest post for our series leading up to the Oct. 21 launch of the Journal of Participatory Medicine. Amy is a nurse-midwife and advocate for mother-friendly maternity care. An expert in research analysis, she manages...
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