Empathy via email
There is already an established literature on doctor-patient email, but there is always room for one more journal article, right? Especially one which reveals (to me, for the first time) that the very first phone call was actually a call for emergency medical assistance. Alexander Graham Bell had just spilled battery acid on himself, hence his hurried, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.”
The very first email was not so urgent, which is probably as it should be since it’s much less immediate than a phone call.
This Archives of Surgery article’s contribution (again, I wish everyone could read the full text, not just the abstract) is to confirm that “in the setting of a prospective randomized controlled clinical trial, patients encouraged to use email access have significantly increased the level of preoperation interaction, without any reduction in measured satisfaction outcomes” (but no increase either, I might add).
Degrees of Access
As of December 2007, 75% of American adults use the internet, 75% own a cell phone, and 54% have a high-speed internet connection at home (download charts here). Seniors, those with less education, and those living with a disability or chronic disease lag behind other adults on all three fronts. Further, a more in-depth survey found that only 8% of American adults are living a digital life and indeed, “half of all American adults are only occasional users of modern information gadgetry.” (Take the quiz to see where you fit.)
I think there are significant health implications to the degrees of technology access in the U.S.
Friends, Family & Post-surgical Outcomes
An article in this week’s Journal of the American College of Surgeons shows that “patients with larger social networks showed better outcomes than patients with small or nonexistent social networks.” Here is the abstract (note: the first time I clicked through to the site I was able to access the full-text version but now I can’t).
Surgical patients with a strong network of friends & family reported better scores for anxiety, depression, inner peace, relaxation, pain intensity and pain unpleasantness for every day of the five post-surgical follow-up days. They needed fewer painkillers and were less likely than other patients to stay in the hospital longer than 7 days. Interestingly, attending a weekly social function had a more significant effect than attending a weekly worship service (which, as the authors write “underscores the need to control for social interactions in general when studying the effect of religious observance on health,” but as I would write, you can’t just go and sit in the pew to get the benefits).
It was a sample of elderly men, and therefore the authors plead for caution in extrapolating from the findings, but I think it’s certainly worth a discussion: What is technology’s role? What is the effect of a supportive online community, in addition to the off-line friends & family measured in most studies? Is the social network effect wholly positive? Or are there hidden dangers? Is there a hierarchy of salutary “social functions”?
The Players in the PHR Space
Want to know who wants to be your next personal health record (PHR) provider? Check out this great run down of the current players in the PHR market, along with some insights into what motivates them to be the company between you and your personal health information.
Technology as a means, not an end
I was part of a brainstorming session yesterday about the role of technology in health and health care, in preparation for a June 2008 Ix conference here in DC. Here is one of the quotes I captured from another participant:
Technology is always framed as an end and it is not. It is a means. The “end” for most people is getting the information and care they need.
The group went on to talk about how convincing docs to track their patients with electronic medical records is really not the point. Better health outcomes is the point.
Can we break that down a little further? If you had one minute to address the nation on the topic of health, what would you say? Put another way: What would your headline be?
Go online. Not too much. Mostly…?
Michael Pollan’s answer to diet angst is to “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Is there an equivalent maxim for information angst? If not, does someone out there want to make one up? Because a new study published in Cancer argues that e-patients can take a common-sense approach to online health research and do just fine.
I was able to obtain a full-text copy of the report, so here are a few lines you won’t read in the press release:
Few consumers consider the quality of online health information as they conduct their web searches. In light of our findings, perhaps this is not a bad thing.
Wow. Did anyone else hear the scream of a million librarians and accreditation executives?
Harnessing Openness
The Committee for Economic Development (CED) is an independent, non-partisan research organization with a trustee list dominated by corporations (not that there’s anything wrong with that — my own funders, the Pew Charitable Trusts, are also listed on the CED site). CED recently released an engaging report entitled, “Harnessing Openness to Transform American Health Care” (PDF).
Here’s a quote from Chapter 6: Expanding Openness for Patients and Caregivers:
“Viewed through the lens of openness, patients are not only the beneficiaries of increased access to information but they are among the most important sources of information for the healthcare system.”
More 2.0 Definitions
Susannah once again posted a series of cool/very useful links! And I know we should keep on providing definitions for all the “Health 2.0″ applications we are talking about. So, out of pure laziness and because the LeFevers brothers have already done the work for us, here is a series of video explanations of some of the big 2.0 Buzzwords. Enjoy!
Consumer Resources
As we continue our discussion of the definitions of 2.0 and user-generated content (UGC), I thought I’d highlight some other buzzwords and link to a few consumer-oriented resources.
I still trust librarians to help me judge information sources, so my first set of links are to articles that first appeared in The Journal of the Medical Library Association (and now appear on PubMed’s lovely full-text archive).
First, JMLA’s reviews of Healia and Medstory, two “vertical” search engines (meaning they aggregate and organize only health-related information). There are many more vertical search engines, but I couldn’t find any journal reviews for them — please leave a comment if you have a search site you like!
Second, a JMLA article about Electronic Book Search, a service of the Health Sciences Library System at the University of Pittsburgh (an example of a “federated” search engine, meaning they enable searches of multiple collections, not just one). Google, Yahoo, and Ask are all working on federated search (as are some smaller start-ups) so keep your eye out for more “federated” sites.
Third, Consumer Reports WebWatch has created a virtual toolkit for e-patients who are wondering how to choose between the myriad ratings, lists, and guides related to health information online, but I’m most interested to see how their new Full Frontal Scrutiny project develops since it touches on a concept that should be a buzzword: authenticity.
Women Healthcare Executives & e-Patients
e-Patients Scholar, Cheryl Greene presented the e-Patient perspective to women healthcare leaders at X2HN. Her talk titled, Making the Most of Health 2.0, was presented at their annual meeting in San Diego, CA. In the audience was Congresswoman Nancy Johnson.
white paper
e-Patients:
How They Can Help Us Heal Healthcare
