Better Health: Smart Health Commentary Better Health (TM): smart health commentary

Latest Posts

The Best Social Tool For Doctors And Patients

We all want technology to improve communication between doctors and patients. We fantasize that social tools will open doors and bridge the expanding divide between doctors and patients.

I’m wondering if it’s a case of unicorns and rainbows: Fancy new tools to do the old thing in a less-effective way. I’m guessing that if Facebook was the old platform for doctor-patient dialog and the telephone was invented this year, everyone would be clamoring to use the phone (“Dude, this is amazing…you can hear them talk.”)

I like the telephone. Written copy misses intonation, timing, pitch, and all the other rich elements of human speech. Subtle changes in a parent’s voice tell me if I’ve made my point and exactly how I need to proceed [with caring for their child]. Unspoken words on a screen are so one-dimensional.

Of course, email has a tightly-defined place in patient communication. And real-time social interaction between patient and clinic will evolve to have a clear role in patient care. But for now, the phone remains one of the most effective tools for helping doctor and patient really understand one another.

[Image credit: Cemagraphics]

*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

Read more »

How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

See all cartoons »

Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

Read more »

The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

Read more »

Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

Read more »

See all book reviews »

Commented - Most Popular Articles