Social media and healthcare: hospitals lead

September 28, 2009 · Filed Under Why PM, e-pts resources, hc's problem list, policy issues, trends & principles · 5 Comments

A signal moment has happened: When a major business authority with no history in healthcare speaks up about a shift in the wind, it’s worth noting. And this time it’s a great sign for participatory medicine, because the news is that hospitals are engaging with patients.

rohit My company’s been working with hospitals the last few months, and it’s surprising and hopeful how eager they are to use social technologies. Last week social media visionary Rohit Bhargava at Olgivy (see Wikipedia page on social media optimization) wrote on Ogilvy’s blog about how hospitals have been “quietly innovating with using social media without receiving much attention or credit for it.”
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Tags: Bhargava, Brain Surgery, Business Authority, Drummy, Ed Bennett, Facebook, Fda Regulation, Fleishman Hillard, Healthcare Hospitals, Henry Ford, Henry Ford Hospital, Hillard, Hospital Ceo, Marketing Strategy, Media Optimization, Media Tools, Paul Levy, Pharma Companies, Regulated Industries, Senak, Shift In The Wind, Social Networking, Spokespeople, Value Exchange, Warning Letter

My Right to Data, Happiness, and a Long and Healthy Life

June 26, 2009 · Filed Under general · 6 Comments

“To alienate [patients] from their own decision making is to change them into objects.” – P. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

The newly drafted Declaration of Health Data Rights, created by patient advocates, caregivers, health care professionals, technology and policy experts, and entrepreneurs (in some cases, all attributes in the same person), states that its assertions are self-evident, basic, essential. The right to have information about oneself? – why the fuss? – this is America after all! Yet the practical and psychological impediments are so immense, and the impact on an individual’s failing health and the country’s economic troubles so potentially redemptive, we get why it’s so important to start spreading the news/ make a brand new start of it.

Much has been explained in the declaration’s FAQs, in the 30+ blog posts (see Gilles’ below, and e-Patient Dave’s here), and very succinctly in hundreds of tweets.

Tags: Access Publishing, Ailments, Assertions, Community Forums, Economic Troubles, Gilles, Health Care Professionals, Health Data, Health Experts, Impediments, Open Access, Own Health, Patient Advocates, Pedagogy, Person States, Policy Experts, Postulates, Research Papers, Social Networking, Speed Connectivity, Spreading The News

Participatory Medicine as Revolution! Think Critically! Communicate!

May 11, 2009 · Filed Under e-patient stories, e-pts resources, general, policy issues, pt/doc co-care, pts as teachers, reforming hc, trends & principles · 17 Comments

My son graduated from college last year and is now in Nepal, visiting schools and writing about rural education under the Maoist regime. He was excited to tell me, when I visited him recently in India, about how a classic book on education, Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Brazilian Paulo Freire, radically influenced and inspired him to readjust his career goals.

The book postulates that real revolution can occur only when the playing field is leveled between teacher and student, whereby critical thinking is infused in education and where ‘teachers become students’ and ‘students become teachers.’ Communication amongst students (i.e., social networking) is equally important in this equation. While in India I read this short book, substituting doctor for ‘teacher’ and patient for ‘student’ and indeed, feel better equipped for the PM agenda.

Tags: Critical Thinking, education, Patient Power, Paulo Freire, Social Networking

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