Laugh, Sing, and Eat Like a Pig
How did I miss this?! That'll teach me to take a vacation while a future best seller hits the marketplace!
When I first heard that Dave deBronkart (aka e-Patient Dave) was writing a book, several thoughts went through my mind. The first one being, "I wonder if he'll be kind enough to autograph mine for me?" Less selfish musings quickly followed. It's a story that needs telling. He'll definitely make it to Oprah. When it's a best seller--it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. I'm sure hundreds, if not thousands of people have an e-Patient Dave story to tell.
I first encountered e-Patient Dave while scouting trends related to healthcare, specifically e-patients and social media. He kept popping up everywhere. After stalking him for a bit, I worked up the nerve to email him to see if he wanted to chat about common interests--I had visions of him coming to give a talk and enlightenening our organization about how patients were rocking the whole medical establishment. I had a great conversation with Dave, but somehow I botched the follow-up call with him and his physician Danny Sands.
My next encounter was last September where I heard Dave speak at Medicine 2.0 Conference. He gave the keynote address Gimme My Damn Data; I found him an engaging and moving speaker. He seemed quite approachable, so I worked up the nerve to re-introduce myself. In a quick minute, I suggested we might meet for dinner when he came to Philadelphia. To my great surprise he took me up on that invitation.
Obviously, the most memorable was being engaged in conversation for a few hours over dinner, live and in person. What a range of topics we explored! What a wonderfully humble and moving storyteller he was! What a generous a spirit he has! Just sitting at the same table with him scored me an invitation to the ePatient Connections conference the next day.
Well Dave deBronkart, I hope you can finally quit your day job. Much success with the book and in your future efforts on behalf of patients everywhere!
20 people who make healthcare better
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.
Scouting Themes
Research
- Experience-based design: from redesigning the system around the patient to co-designing services with the patient
- Sleep Deprivation, Physician Performance, and Patient Safety
- Education Research: Cognitive performance is preserved in sleep-deprived neurology residents
Bookmarks
- Wellcome Images - Biomedical, humanistic images under creative commons license
- openphoto.net | home to 14843 images
- John Mellencamp Likens Internet To A-Bomb
- Manymoon | Task/Project Management | Google Apps
- Augen's $150 Android tablet hits Kmart circular, coming to stores later this week