August 22nd, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion
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I recently got into a discussion with a couple friends about doctors and blogging. Why don’t we see more doctors out there? Of the hundreds of thousands of doctors, I’d expect more to be taking a voice. Even during the U.S. healthcare reform debate — crickets.
Of course there are doctors who blog, but the numbers are slim. What’s behind it?
Passion. Pushing great content requires a passionate interest in changing ideas and making a difference. There’s malaise in medicine right now. Margins are slim. Physicians are losing control of what’s happening around them. The fire in the belly that drove so many doctors to choose medicine has given way to a preoccupation with survival.
Late adopters. Most doctors think a blog is something that deviant teens do on a cellphone. There’s endemic ignorance in the medical community surrounding social technology. Can we teach ‘em? Maybe. But I think this is a generational issue that will work itself out with time. The use of social technology to facilitate dialog between doctor and patient will evolve over the next several years as: 1) technology evolves and 2) digital communication becomes a standard. Keep in mind that many of us still work with doctors who grew up using rotary phones. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
August 15th, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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“Live the questions now. Perhaps then, without hardly noticing, you will live along some distant day into the answers.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
With the tectonic shifts underway in America’s healthcare delivery model, doctors influence in shaping the forces ahead seems to be dwindling.
It started with the entire healthcare bill drafted by a team of some undisclosed, very influential academics, lawyers and policy wonks adept at social security and tax laws and was morphed by corporate and hospital interests with huge political and financial influence. Before the legislation was even read, the American Medical Association had stamped their seal of approval, worried that “they’d be eaten if they weren’t at the table.” As a result, a significant number, no, I’ll stick my neck out here and say a majority of doctors, had little to do with shaping healthcare in America as we will come to know it.
But I would also bet that most of Americans want doctors with their best interests at heart to be integral participants in shaping our new healthcare system.
So now, as doctors align themselves with a single health system employer so they can beg for a portion of the government’s soon-to-be-implemented “bundled” (bungled?) payment scheme to healthcare systems for episodes of care, how will doctors have any meaningful voice at improving healthcare for our patients and ourselves? Enter social media. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
