e-Patient Dave

Power to the Patient!

By 3 Comments

“Health IT can improve care, because information can improve care.”

Twitter friend Alicia Aebersold, at George Washington University, just reminded me of this quick video interview recorded last year. I’d forgotten! But I love what it says.

This spring I did a whole speech on the same topic, 35 minutes with slides. That video’s here.

Folks, do you (yes you, the person in your underpants) know what’s in your medical record? Your kids’? Your folks’? Now’s the time to ask – before those records become important in a crisis.

In my speeches I say “Let Patients Help.” Now it’s your turn: do the helping – help your healthcare providers. Make sure the info at their fingertips is correct. How else can they perform to the top of their training?

By 6 Comments

“A young mom’s musings” blog: “How I lost my fear of Universal Health Care”

One of the great things about Twitter is that although you can’t possibly keep an eye on everything, every now and then something flies past that you never would have seen otherwise.

This weekend this extraordinary post caught my eye: How I lost my fear of Universal Health Care. Please read this earnest young mom’s experience. It starts:

When I moved to Canada in 2008, I was a die-hard conservative Republican. So when I found out that we were going to be covered by Canada’s Universal Health Care, I was somewhat disgusted. This meant we couldn’t choose our own health coverage, or even opt out if we wanted to.

I’ve always preferred to stay out of political spitting contests (to put it mildly), because I can’t function when wild accusations fly around. Heck, everything I’ve seen says most people don’t actually know what’s in the health reform law. And besides, what I’m about is patient engagement, not politics. I believe people should be actively engaged and responsible in health and care, and that society should enable that, not block it.

So what I need is real-world examples of how things work out when people try to get care and try to be responsible for their families’ health.

And this young mother relates what she found when she moved to the land of universal care.  Partway through the post, she writes – [Read more…]

By Leave a Comment

What a vacation THAT was. Thank you.

The plan

Starting a business is hard. Advancing a movement is hard. It’s been tiring. So last month, when I announced my first vacation in seven years I said:

For me “time off” means freedom from agenda. Don’t tell me to stay offline; that would be an agenda … I’ll read, I’ll sit on a beach (under an umbrella, for cancer prevention), we’ll tour the area …. Most of all, we’ll do whatever we feel like.

I said

We’re going to stay with friends, so it’s not like we’re splurging on a resort, or even a paid campground. On the other hand, the friends are overseas, which is sweet. :-)

I said

My assistant Linda will be monitoring my emails and will be able to reach me.

The outcome:

It worked.

I haven’t worn socks since June 22. Most days I wore sandals.

I haven’t worn long pants since June 20. Most days I wore swim trunks.

[Read more…]

By

Chinese saying: “Prolonged illness makes the patient a good doctor”

Being on vacation (yay), I’m finding lazy time to dawdle in all kinds of things I’ve postponed. One of  them is the conversation a year ago about my TEDx Maastricht talk, “Let Patients Help,” http://on.TED.com/Dave:

Last night I ran across this, from a Chinese college student named Gao Yixian:

Jul 16 2011: Thank you very much, Dave! It is a very good and brilliant idea. In fact, there is an old saying in China- “久病成良医”, which means prolonged illness makes the patient a good doctor. So let patients help patients!

Love it.

And now, back to the beach.:-)

By 8 Comments

Lung cancer resources and patient communities?

Busy times: the other day I asked about endometrial cancer, and now I’ve had two requests for lung cancer help in the past three days.

I gather all these answers on my Patient Communities page, as best I can. (Just fixed the link – 9:18 ET)

I know there are many communities for lung cancer patients, but I don’t know where they are. So let’s get going, people: let us know what you know!  Even the obvious ones.

I know there are some on Inspire.com and ACOR, but I don’t have the URLs.  Paste ’em in here and it’ll be easier for the next soul in need. Thanks!