e-Patient Dave Explains What An e-Patient Is!

What does it mean to be an e-Patient in this information age--empowered, engaged, equipped and enabled?

Did you know?

Emerging e-patient activities: 

47% of adults have used the internet to get information about doctors or other health professionals 

41% have read someone else’s commentary or experience about health or medical issues on an online news group or blog 

38% have gotten information about hospitals 

33% have gotten information about how to lose or control their weight 

27% have gotten information about health insurance 

24% have consulted rankings or reviews online of hospitals 

12% have gotten information about how to stay healthy on an overseas trip 

24% have consulted rankings or reviews of doctors 

19% have signed up to receive updates about health or medical issues 

13% have listened to a podcast about health or medical issues 

5% have reviewed a doctor 

4% have reviewed a hospital 

* Data extracted from the Pew Internet and Life Project Report

As advances in technology and the internet bring us closer to information and each other, a new world of Participatory Medicine is evolving in which networked patients are shifting from mere passengers to responsible drivers of their health.

e-Patient Dave is perhaps the world's foremost advocate for e-Patients is coming to Australia in late June for a lecture tour. “e-patient Dave” deBronkart discusses how technology is creating this new dynamic in how information is delivered, accessed and used by patients.

Technology--from personal health records, patient portals and home monitoring devices to email and social networking sites can help you make better decisions about your health and health care.

And there are lessons here for providers too - everything from health insurance providers to online appointment booking services. Patients want access to information to help them make informed decisions involving their own health. One such organisation who is doing a great job here in Australia in connecting patients and health care providers via expert Q & A's, providing the very access Dave deBronkart talks about  is Healthshare, another is Patient Opinion. In the case of Patient Opinion they believe that feedback, both good and bad from consumers using the health care system  is essential to improving health services.

When Dave deBronkart learned he had a rare and terminal cancer, he turned to a group of fellow patients online -- and found the medical treatment that saved his life. After beating this unbeatable disease Dave became a blogger, keynote speaker and health policy advisor.

Now he calls on all patients to talk with one another, know their own health data, and make health care better one e-Patient at a time.

 “What are my odds of having ever run in to anybody else who had kidney cancer? Very, very slight, and yet I got connected with this expert community on ACOR.org, and I got superb advice not just on treatment options, but on how to deal with the side effects,” recalls deBronkart.

“Today my oncologist says there’s no question the interleukin saved me and killed my tumors, but he said, ‘You were really sick and I’m not sure you could have tolerated enough to do the job if you hadn’t been so informed about the side effects so you were prepared to see it through."

 “I don’t say that anybody should be like me. I do say that when somebody wants to get actively involved, we should give them all the information and tools and resources and advocates that we can. My appeal is not the medical establishment is corrupt or this is all a bunch of bologna. My appeal is let patients help.”

 We’re at a really important turning point, because traditionally the medical field has lagged way beyond many other industries in terms of adoption of technology, and that is changing through a set of incentives for doctors and hospitals to adopt technology and to use it in ways that really improve care.

 “For the first time electronically many patients can get direct access to their own health record that previously would only live in an old-fashioned manila folder in a file cabinet in your doctor’s office.

And increasingly now, you can get that information online and ideally, too, you can take it and you can plug it in to other kinds of apps and tools, even things on your smart phone, to use it in ways that are creative and that help you meet your own health goals.

 It really is augmenting and building on the kinds of relationships that we already have with our health providers, and making that partnership a lot stronger.

Note: if you would like e-Patient Dave to talk to your organisation please contact me directly to ascertain availability.