2011 Major Projects: Opportunities and Challenges

My first year full time in healthcare completed on February 28. It’s been terrific, and I’ve been left with a huge number of fascinating project ideas – too many to sort out by myself. So I’ll do the modern thing: discuss it on social media with my peeps! (That’s “people,” for you non-Web-2.0 peeps.)

Some of these are public service ideas, some are purely my business. The point is that there’s clearly an audience for patient engagement, and a big agenda has emerged. I’m open to all ideas for how to make every bit of this a reality in 2011. (Yes, this year!)

Discuss in comments, or contact me via my contact page.

Project 1: “A Million Errors Fixed”

Long ago, McDonald’s signs said “100 million served” then “200 million served” and on and on. They’re hardly a good model for healthy behavior, but their tally board told the public loud and clear that people were buying what they were offering.

This idea is similar: we publicize the goal “A Million Errors Fixed,” give people a way to get engaged with their medical records, help them fix errors, and keep a rolling tally of progress toward the million.

This was suggested by the great BJ Fogg, to springboard off my realization two years ago that our medical records often contain errors, and we can help. BJ is all about encouraging behaviors.

How:

• Build a simple (but large) database of whom to contact to get a copy of your record, so you can review it. (We can launch long before the database is complete; we’ll provide a request form.)
• Include how and where to report errors to your provider.
• Have two separate McDonald’s-style counters, one for Errors Found and one for Errors Fixed. (When the error is fixed, come back and click “Fixed.”)
• Publicize the goal: “A Million Errors Fixed.”
• Requires: a database, a grad student to develop the website, funding.

Project 2: A Patient Speaker’s Bureau

I first proposed this over two years ago. I don’t know what it will take to make it happen but if healthcare’s really going to change, we must get in the habit of always having patients in the room when we discuss changes. And too often I hear rumors that some dinosaurs think participatory medicine is “just Dave.” Baloney, and we need to make that fact visible to the dinosaurs.:-)

Who will help create this need? From my other blog, here’s my original post on the patient speaker’s bureau, and here’s a post last night on my other blog to help patients get professional about it.

Project 3: Sales Outreach

This is a straight-up business need for my speaking business. I could use someone to write letters and make phone calls to conference organizers to book me for speaking 6 to 24 months out.

(Everyone says I should get a speaker’s bureau, but despite my high ratings, I don’t seem to be what they’re looking for: every bureau I’ve spoken with has not known what to do with me! It’s ironic, because more than once I’ve heard through the grapevine that conference organizers said my talk was much more valuable to the audience than the high-priced speaker they got from a bureau! Well, no use complaining about that – empowered people take matters into their own hands.)

I don’t have a venture capital bankroll so this would be straight-commission work, probably appropriate for someone who’s between jobs or on a limited time schedule. I have books of associations to contact – it’s the kind of repetitive work that I value but can’t stand to do myself.

Project 4: The e-Patient Dave Seminars: partners needed

I’m developing a half-day seminar consisting of in-depth discussions of every topic I’ve spoken on regarding participatory medicine: health IT, the history of patient engagement, the history of the heap patient movement,facing death, how the Internet has changed marketing and communication with the public, and on and on. My plan is to offer this in cities where I’m already traveling to speak or attend a meeting, and sell it to the public. I seek hospitals or health plans to partner with me to co-brand these events.

Because the content already exists from prior presentations, I’m ready to start almost immediately. This can be attached to a conference that’s already scheduled or produced as an independent event. Audiences will include clinicians, health policy people, patient advocates, anyone who wants to understand the new world of patient centered participatory medicine. If you want to host an event, co-branding it, contact me.

Project 5: CME (Continuing Medical Education)

This may be more of a project for the Society for Participatory Medicine than for me, but whoever does it, the time has come. After several speeches in 2010, people came up and said, “I’m ready. Where do I start?” To any marketer, that’s a clear sign the time is right for curriculum at different levels to teach both the patient side and the provider side of the new dance of participatory medicine.

We can start with my content space from my seminars (above), and turn it into either certified or uncertified CME modules I’d like to conduct them in person and ultimately license them for delivery online.

Project 6: “e-Patient for Dummies” or similar book

The consumer outreach portion of both the CME and seminar ideas is something along the lines of a Dummies book, written and illustrated at a consumer level – and I don’t mean sophisticated e-patient, I mean consumer level like your neighbor down the street, who’s never heard of this stuff.

I have all the content ideas, or at least plenty to start with; I need help in making it happen and getting it sold, so it becomes a reality out there in the world where everyone needs it.
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No wonder I was feeling tired before the year’s even three months old. :-)  What do you think?