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!
First International mHealth Networking Conference (I was there!)
Last week (February 3-4, 2010) I attended the mHealth Networking Conference in DC. Sponsored by mHealth Initiative Inc (mHI), the conference was focused around the use of emerging mobile technologies to improve healthcare delivery. Here are a few themes to give you a flavor: iPhones/mobile phones/Android phones, emailing your doctor, bringing evidence to practice via electronic alerts for patients and physicians, home health monitoring, real-time everything, connectivity, usability, patient literacy, technologies for chronic care management and geriatrics.) The full program seems to still be available, and relevant Twitter posts (e.g., for the #mHealth hash tag) are also available.
Throughout the conference I met a mixture of providers (physicians, nurses, PAs, etc), insurance company representatives, techies/code crunchers, expert patients, and informatics researchers. In fact, according to the mHI, there were about 300 attendees - not too bad for a first shot! Note: A second conference is planned for September 8-9 in San Diego (perhaps they'll provide an option for joining remotely?)
One of the biggest take-home messages I got from the conference is that smart phone technologies won't necessarily solve problems for patients who won't or can't use them (e.g., geriatric patients who may not be able to see small lettering). Usability and design issues again rear their heads in healthcare. We need to attack these issues as a "net", tackling many simultaneously so that when convergence occurs, quality improvement is what emerges.
I also wanted to mention that it was especially interesting to see Adam Bosworth, formerly of Google, present on his new venture Keas, which has the following laudable mission:
To help you understand what your health data means and how you can use it to be as healthy as possible.
Keas is in Beta right now - check it out! (And consider this question: How might healthcare change if the act of interpreting results of diagnostic tests and deciding next steps in treatment is done by a company like Keas?)
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