This is a real pleasure – a guest post by Patti Brennan (@PattiFBrennan), one of the people I admire most in the world of improving healthcare through patient engagement. I first met her through Project HealthDesign, one of the best programs sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: “Rethinking the Power and Potential of Personal Health Records.” I’ve also shared a panel or two with her at industry events – not nearly enough to suit me, though. :-)
Last year Project HealthDesign completed. One of its key subject areas was “ODLs” – observations of daily living. Here she explains the idea and lists some exemplary work she’s seen.
This guest post (I added some boldfacing) is long overdue – I’m just too busy for my own good sometimes! Thanks for this honor, Patti.
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Patients + Providers + Technology = Engagement
There’s a growing group of patient advocates, people like Hugo Campos or ‘our own’ Dave deBronkart (e-Patient Dave), who are calling for patients to be active and equal partners in their health—and that’s a goal that as a nurse I wholeheartedly support. At Project HealthDesign, we have worked to encourage two-way conversations between patients and clinicians, with both parties held in equal status. Clinicians are the trained experts in health care, but patients are the experts in their own lives and their own bodies. We believe that when both parties work together, more can be done to improve health care than either can do alone.
The key to forging these relationships and creating successful partnerships between patients and providers is technology.
Last month 
