e-Patient Infiltrates Medical Professional Assessment Organization
by Amber Montanano
On January 11, we had a guest come in and shake things up a bit here. Jen McCabe Gorman gave a really engaging talk (which can be found here if you’ve got an hour to kill and feel like you could use some stimulation) about medicine, social media, and how the two can be mashed together to help you become a participant in your care as opposed to simply the object of your doctor’s care.
We had a record turnout for her morning session – literally, I think we set a record for attendance! – and then she took the rest of her day to brainstorm with smaller groups of us about topics like patient safety and communication skills (See inset pictures of the white boards... it's okay if you don't understand them. I don't think I do anymore, either. But while she was drawing them, they really made sense!). It was really interesting to see our crowd really start trying to see things from a different perspective. I guess I never really thought about how we don’t get input from patients on any of our exams… since we’re supposed to be protecting them and all. Even a youngster like me (almost 3 years here which is a drop in the bucket for some folks) has been indoctrinated into thinking that “experts” have a bunch of letters after his or her name and run a medical school or a hospital. Jen’s perspective was, in a word used by many folks around here, refreshing!
And now for a non-solicited plug: You should really follow Jen on twitter for awesome scouting tidbits, and get involved in her #getupandmove initiative. It’s a way to challenge your friends to improve their health by making microchoices about their activities. Also, you should check Jen out on LinkedIn to see the many projects she has and is working on currently.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll look at Jen’s profile and think, “She’s just about the same age as me… what the heck have I been doing with my life?!” Yeah. She’s that awesome. And productive. And hopefully a collaborator for many moons to come!
Relatedly, there are now hundreds of hospitals who are finally "getting it" as far as utilizing social media tools to create better strategies for caring for their patients. See if your local hospital is on the list!
About Face! The MIT Media Lab assesses microexpressions
by Jillian Ketterer
When I was catching up on posts from one of my favorite blogs, Brain Pickings, I stumbled upon this post about a software application developed by the Affective Computing Group at the MIT Media Lab. The application, called FaceSense, detects and analyzes facial gestures in real-time, and then uses that information to make inferences about the person's mood and emotional state. As Brain Pickings points out:
An accurate disposition detection model for video can be used in anything from analyzing politicians’ televised appearances to testing news anchors for bias.
The possibilities - both wonderful and nefarious - are endless. Check out the video to find out more!
Patient involvement – Another public service announcement
by Kathleen Rose
Apparently this video has been out for some time, but someone asked me today if I'd seen the AHRQ commercial about asking your doctor questions. The video really needs no explanation; it's a great message. Share it with every patient you know!
Perfecting patient care
by Kathleen Rose
Since my last post referred to people who make healthcare better, a post on "Perfecting Patient Care" seemed appropriate. I recently made a short field trip across the great state of PA to Pittsburgh, where I learned you cannot hail a cab easily, but you can find the dedicated staff at the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) and Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI) doing their best to address patient safety and quality improvement, often in one patient care setting at a time.
In her dual role as president of JHS and co-founder of PRHI, our highly energetic colleague Karen Wolk Feinstein and a fine cast of PRHI staff eagerly introduced us to "Perfecting Patient Care (PPC)," which is based on the "lean" concept, using Toyota-based methods. PPC is an interdisciplinary fellowship program targeted at graduate students that runs for eight weeks during the summer. Twenty to 25 students from several local universities learn a different tool or philosophy each week. Paired with a local mentor, they meet weekly at a different healthcare institution and set to work on a problem, identified by the institution. By employing learned observation methods, students are able to identify issues and design an action/improvement plan. It's an overall win-win situation, the fellows learn a valuable team-based problem-solving methodology, and the institution is provided with valuable information and insight into their issue without having to sacrifice staff time.
Can't participate in the fellowship program? There's always PPC University, a 4-day program to train champions and healthcare professionals in practice. Open PPC runs five times a year in Pittsburgh; participants arrive with a goal in mind, e.g., reducing patient falls, eliminating infections, etc., and leave with the design and implementation tools needed to identify the issues, address the problems and attain their goals. Customized PPC focuses the 4-day program on the needs of an individual institution or care setting and is delivered on-site.
"PRHI offers healthcare leaders the necessary tools, expertise, education, models and networks to perfect patient care and safety in their organizations. Using the Toyota Production System as a model, PRHI developed a quality improvement method for clinical settings known as Perfecting Patient Caresm."
There's also something brewing called Tomorrow's Healthcare, but if I tell you about it, I'd have to kill you. Before taking my leave, I was eager to sign up for University, as I'm sure there is something I can work on fixing around here!
To learn more about PPC and other projects and PRHI programs, check out their website or stop in and say hey to Karen, Laura, Linda, Steve, Keith, Barb, Gerry, Colleen, Brian, et al...
Will the public “buy” Blippy?
by Jillian Ketterer
Today I stumbled upon a really strong example of how certain subsets of consumers are willing to sacrifice privacy in exchange for what I'll call "social convenience". Blippy, which is just in beta and was recently highlighted in a New York Times article, is an online social network that lets you share your recent credit card purchases with your friends. I haven't actually used the service, but from the description, it seems to do this automatically in a "Twitter-like" microblogging fashion - a type of passive, social information-sharing. There are, of course, ways to restrict what is shared with whom, but in general I think this is a step in the direction of transparency. The question is: will people find benefit in sharing where they are and what they are buying (and for how much) with their friends?
My guess is yes, but I am very curious about what the early adopters will look like, since users of this service will need to have, for example, (a) access to the internet, (b) a credit card, (c) available funds on their credit card, (d) an interest in shopping and purchase-related information, and (e) friends who possess characteristics "a" through "e". I look forward to seeing how this one pans out!
20 people who make healthcare better
by Kathleen Rose
I followed a link in a tweet today to an article in Health Leaders Media that put the spotlight on 20 people who make healthcare better. I'm not sure if the profiles are in any particular order, but I was pleased to note that three of the first four on the list were familiar names--Atul Gawande, Dave deBronkart, and Daniel Sands, MD. Full of confidence in my ability to identify and pursue the right "people in motion," I scanned the remaining names on the list and did not recognize any of them. The good news is that there are 17 more interesting people I plan to learn about.
I first heard about Atul Gawande via a guest post on this blog entitled Moral Hazards 'r Us where the author references Gawande's New Yorker article The Cost Conundrum, "...a brilliant piece because it shines a light in so many directions." Give it a read, if you haven't already.
After stalking @epatientdave via Twitter and his blog, I finally had the pleasure of hearing him speak at a conference in Toronto--Medicine 2.0; I wrote about it in a previous post. The Health Leaders article describes Dave as "...the quintessential engaged patient consumer the likes of whom—depending on your viewpoint—is either an anomaly or an inevitability." After meeting Dave recently at a the ePatient Connections Conference here in Philly, I continue to stalk him to keep up with his efforts to enable others to partner with their healthcare providers. Get to know him, he's quite a guy!
As a biproduct of my stalking Dave, I learned about Danny Sands, engaging physician and one of the key reasons Dave is able to actively partner in his own medical care and promote participatory medicine. Danny is assistant clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and senior medical informatics director for Cisco Systems. Check out the Health Leaders Media article to learn more about Danny and the others.
Hey, Miss Manners, welcome to 2009.
by Amber Montanano
I heard a segment on NPR the other day about mobile device technology etiquette. (As a side note, I notice that most of my posts are inspired by things I hear on NPR. What would I do without you, public radio?) It basically laid out some ground rules for when and how it's appropriate to use mobile devices when you're dating someone. In this new and strange age of technology, I suppose rules about this kind of thing were bound to happen. For me, this is a really interesting area to get into.
I know I’m preaching to the choir.
by Amber Montanano
e-Patients are getting more and more press lately. This morning I heard some people on the radio talking about how folks are using the internet for support and information. They even dropped the Patients Like Me name. What surprises me more than anything is that it's taking so long to get the medical community to pay attention to the social media explosion.
A Public Service Post
by Amber Montanano
Know your enemy!
It seems like there have been several viruses flying around the Center over the past few weeks. I think all six of us have been out for one illness or another. Suspicions of H1N1 swirl, but thankfully, no one has been seriously compromised.
Maybe I shouldn't be saying things like that until the flu season is officially over. Jeez, do I know how to tempt the fates or what?
Anyway, I was cruising around on npr's site today and came across a pretty useful video/article and thought that I'd share it with not only my non-MD colleagues, but anyone who happens across this here blog and is as curious about what viruses do in your body as I was.
I must now return to my muscle aches and lethargy.
Doctor knows best?
by Kathleen Rose
Does the doctor always know best?
Have I mentioned lately how grateful I am to have had my tweepiphany? Now that I have access to the collective wisdom of an entire community advocating patient-centered healthcare, I find myself with a steady stream of valuable tidbits that I can address in blog posts or use to poke at med ed colleagues. Such was the source of this article Power to the Patients by the authors of Innovator's Prescription, Clayton Christensen and Jason Hwang.
"...if more patients realized how much influence they could have in their own care, they would discard their roles as passive health care consumers, and would instead become its agents of change."
If you like the article, you ought to try the book...can't borrow ours though, I'm not finished yet.
Scouting Themes
Research
- Cottage Industry to Postindustrial Care -- The Revolution in Health Care Delivery
- Comparison of Two VA Laboratory Data Repositories Indicates That Missing Data Vary Despite Originating From the Same Source
- Measuring the Impact of a Moving Target: Towards a Dynamic Framework for Evaluating Collaborative Adaptive Interactive Technologies
Bookmarks
- Hospital Social Network List
- amednews: 'I'm sorry': Why is that so hard for doctors to say?
- Zelda Rubinstein dies at 76; actress played psychic in 'Poltergeist' - latimes.com
- A Symbol to Provide Details About Online Privacy - NYTimes.com
- Has Twitter peaked? - CNN.com