July 6th, 2010 by DavedeBronkart in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Opinion, True Stories
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I love this — a website that could’ve ONLY been created by cancer patients. From ThinkAboutYourLife.org:
Find empowerment: Anything you can do to feel like you are taking control of your illness and treatment will help you. Think About Your Life was developed by cancer survivors. We have used the tools on this website in our own experiences, and we hope to inspire you do the same.
This website provides easy-to-use tools for each stage of the cancer journey to help you:
- Process your thoughts and feelings: Elizabeth shared the “Good Day, Bad Day” tool with her family to tell them how they could help her throughout treatment.
- Take control and make decisions: Amanda used her “One Page Profile” with her doctor to discuss the impact of treatment on her life.
- Think about the “what now” and the “what next”: The “Hopes & Fears” tool helped Susan think about the next few months of her life after treatment.
I learned about the site from its creator, Amanda George, who commented on a recent post about person-centered health. Hot diggety. Don’t you just love how the Internet lets us connect with each other and share ideas?
*This blog post was originally published at The New Life of e-Patient Dave*
June 26th, 2010 by AndrewSchorr in Better Health Network, Opinion, True Stories
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The book publishing world, largely based in New York City, is in trouble. The fragmentation of the market by electronics large and small has chopped former readers into so many pieces. How can a publisher make a blockbuster buck anymore? The answer may come in translations of Swedish fiction from a newly-found novelist, now dead, to non-fiction ghostwritten for a face everyone knows from the evening news.
In a whirlwind face-to-face series of meeting with publishers on a very recent sunny Tuesday in Manhattan, I got a glimpse of their angst and did my best to convince them that a book — yes, even all sorts of electronic versions and in-the-palm-of-your-hand “apps” — could make them boatloads of money and do the right thing for America’s healthcare consumer (just maybe such a work could be translated into Swedish and do good there in a return of the favor literary effort). Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Andrew's Blog*
June 25th, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, Book Reviews, Opinion
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If you want to see the difference between how doctors and patients think, read Jerome Groopman’s “How Doctors Think” and Thomas Goetz’s “The Decision Tree.” The contrast is striking.
“How Doctors Think,” while offering a comprehensive review of the cognitive missteps made by physicians, is terminally physician-centric in its analysis of the relationship we share with patients. “The Decision Tree,” while offering a novel blueprint for self-reliance in health, seems almost sheepish in its recognition that physicians are even really that important. The muted physician cameos of “The Decision Tree” stand in stark contrast to Groopman’s Harvard-trained masters of the universe. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
June 1st, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, True Stories
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I regularly talk to my patients’ parents about social health. What parents do, what they think, and how they socially experience their child’s health problems has become an interest of mine.
I can hear it now: “Of course patients won’t discuss their social health activities with you, you’re a doctor.” Perhaps, but I don’t think so. Actually, I’ve had some very interesting open dialog with a few of my long-term patient-parents. Many have children suffering with chronic diseases such as Crohn’s disease, eosinophilic enteropathy, and the like. The relationships I cultivate are open, and the nature of my dialog has been just as consistently open as other aspects of our relationship.
Interestingly, while nearly all have used online search to understand their disease, most have never connected with other disease sufferers in the online space. The concept of crowdsourcing is met with puzzled looks. Sure they’re e-patients, but I would characterize most of my patients as e-patients. The question is: What does that really mean? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
May 10th, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, Book Reviews, Health Policy, Health Tips, Opinion
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What’s amazing is that despite the vocal movement to empower patients, no one has put together a well-referenced, readable book to help patients understand how they should use personalized medicine to influence their health — until now.
Enter The Decision Tree: Taking Control of Your Health in the New Era of Personalized Medicine (Rodale 2010), something of a blueprint of patient liberation written by Thomas Goetz, executive editor of Wired magazine. It offers constructive narrative not only about the importance of the decisions we make but how to apply the concept of an old-fashioned decision tree in making those decisions. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
