November 5th, 2011 by AndrewSchorr in Opinion
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I can’t get the 1989 baseball movie Field of Dreams out of my head. That’s especially true right now as I can’t wait for the seventh game of the World Series. My son, Eitan, and I sat on the couch and watched the sixth game last night and it was probably the most exciting game I’ve ever seen. Plot twists galore. You can bet the audience for tonight’s game will be HUGE.
What’s so cool in thinking back about the movie is the famous line said to the baseball fanatic farmer: “If you build it they will come.” So he built a baseball field behind his house and the greats of baseball history came to play. I have never forgotten that line and have applied it to what we “build” at Patient Power – interview programs for people living with serious health concerns.
In the past few weeks, and continuing from now on, we have been focusing on two blood-related cancers: multiple myeloma and chronic myelogenous leukemia. While there are other educational resources out there, people living with these serious conditions always want more – as well they should. Fortunately, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Andrew's Blog*
October 6th, 2011 by KerriSparling in Opinion
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Two weeks ago, I attended my third year at Kru Research’s ePatient Connections conference, and every year, I’m amazed at how many different industry people show up and showcase their impressive efforts … but how few patients. But this year, there were a lot of patients. Lots as in “more than five.”
For a conference with “ePatient” in the title, it was good to finally see more than just a handful of ePatients in the audience. (And this is thanks, largely in part, to the ePatient Bill of Rights project that took place on September 19th, across the hall from the SXSH event). And it wasn’t just a handful of diabetes patients – there were many health conditions well-represented at these events. For me, it was nice to talk about the universal issues that people with chronic illnesses face, instead of drifting around in the bubble of diabetes. I like stepping outside of our comfortable space and learning about what others are living with. I need that exposure to other types of patients … keeps me thinking globally.
Part of the panel discussion Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
October 6th, 2011 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Opinion
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Irrational exuberance was a term once used to describe the stock market before the last crash. It also seems an apt description for much of the talk these days about empowered health consumers.
To be sure, patients today have unprecedented access to health information. Patient decision-support tool can be found on just about every provider, payer and self-insured employer website. Consumers can go to any number of websites to find quality data about hospitals, physicians and health plans. Personal health records (PHRs) promise to make our personal health data portable for meaning that all our treating physicians will be “singing off the same song sheet.”
That’s what the industry experts tell us. But what’s really going on? Here I will describe what I see as the top 5 myths about empowered health consumers. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
