Journal of Participatory Medicine Launches at Connected Health

October 21, 2009 · Filed Under Why PM, e-pts resources, trends & principles, understanding statistics · 4 Comments

Press release for the October 22nd launch of the Journal of Participatory Medicine:

Improving health care:
Journal of Participatory Medicine
will document methods that work
for patient/provider collaboration

Launch at Connected Health Symposium
features essays by visionaries in
health care, Internet, high tech, business, and sociology

Patient engagement and patient empowerment are popular topics, with hundreds of thousands of Google hits, but there’s precious little information on how to do them well. A new academic journal being launched this week, the Journal of Participatory Medicine, aims to change that.

Created by experienced pioneers of the “e-patient” movement, the Journal will be introduced this week at the Connected Health Symposium in Boston, hosted by the Partners HealthCare Center for Connected Health. The Journal is an official publication of the Society for Participatory Medicine, founded in 2009 by the patients and physicians who have worked together for several years at e-patients.net.

Tags: Academic Journal, Anecdote, Care Delivery System, Features Essays, Google, Health Care Internet, Health Care Journal, Health Press, Health Professionals, Health Symposium, Healthcare Center, Improving Health Care, Launch, October 22nd, Partners Healthcare, Patient Empowerment, Patient Involvement, Patient Movement, Personal Health Data, Principles Methods, Symposium Features, Visionaries

#WhyPM?

October 13, 2009 · Filed Under Why PM, patient networks, positive patterns, pt/doc co-care, trends & principles · 10 Comments

Note: if you do not use Twitter an explanation of this post’s title may be in order. #WhyPM is the Twitter hashtag we have been using collectively to announce the launch of the Journal of Participatory Medicine and to mention topics of interest from the Journal and the Internet.

So what is Participatory Medicine?

Simply put “Participatory Medicine (PM) is a model of medical care acknowledging the central role of the e-patients in medicine and requiring their active participation and engagement, because health professionals can no longer do it alone.”

As we put the finishing touches to the Journal of Participatory Medicine, it is ever clearer that various stakeholders have different views of what constitute participatory medicine. In particular, our different backgrounds are shaping how far we accept the central role of the engaged and networked patient in the brave new world of PM.

Using various social media, I have tried to iteratively refine the initial definition crafted in Feb 2008. The Wikipedia definition remains the single most quoted definition, but I have come to believe we should provide the much simpler one, above. As Alan Greene, MD commented in the crowdsourced definition of PM: “The ‘participation’ in Participatory Medicine isn’t just a patient participating with a doctor, but a patient participating in improving his or her own health, in constructive collaboration with a network of others with the same goal.”

Tags: Alan Greene, Brave New World, Clinicians, Constructive Collaboration, Finishing Touches, Health Professionals, Health Symposium, Initial Definition, Launch, Medical Care, Medicine, Nbsp, Own Health, Participation, Patient Advocate, Stakeholders, Twitter, Wikipedia

Why the Journal of Participatory Medicine?

October 12, 2009 · Filed Under Why PM, net-friendly docs, pt/doc co-care, reforming hc, trends & principles · 6 Comments

Next week at the Connected Health Symposium in Boston, the Society for Participatory Medicine will launch its new journal. In keeping with the society’s spirit of physician-patient partnership, the Co-Editors in Chief are a physician and a patient: Charlie Smith MD (the primary physician of our founder “Doc Tom” Ferguson) and Jessie Gruman, Ph.D., who has beaten cancer three times using participatory principles. (See the biographies of the editors and advisors.)

In another post Gilles Frydman discusses “Why Participatory Medicine?” Here, the co-editors do a terrific job of answering the hand-in-glove question “Why this Journal?” It’s clear and compelling: Read more

Tags: Advances In Technology, Biographies, Care Giver, Charles Smith, Charlie Smith, Editors, Effective Health Care, Gilles Frydman, Hand In Glove, Health Symposium, Imperative, Initial Article, Jessie Gruman, New Developments, New Ways, Patient Care, Prevention Treatment, Professional Service, Service Delivery System, Terrific Job, Three Times, Tom Ferguson, Wh