I’m humbled to be one of the three people selected by Creation Healthcare for their annual “People in Healthcare Engagement Award.” Creation Healthcare advises companies on how to use social media wisely, 
to engage actively with their markets, transcending the old-school “We talk, you listen” approach that everyone is learning to move past. It takes new mindsets and new skills to understand how the world has changed and what to do about it. That’s what this is about.
Also honored are Janssen’s Digital Strategy & Social Media Manager Alex Butler (“Nobody should pat themselves on the back for having a Twitter account – it’s what you do with it that matters”) and Sabine Kostevc, author of the social media guidelines for Roche Pharmaceuticals, which were widely praised last year, and justly so. (If you’re interested in this culture change and you haven’t read Sabine’s guidelines, you should.)
In the announcement Daniel Ghinn writes:
Dave deBronkart personifies how the Internet has changed healthcare over the past few years. His book, ‘Laugh, Sing, and Eat Like a Pig’, published in 2010, in which he shares his incredible journey beating Stage IV cancer, is a testimony to the power of the Internet to change lives. It is also a powerful resource not only for patients but for healthcare stakeholders to learn from.
Thanks, Daniel – that’s my fondest dream: that everyone involved will realize how empowered, engaged, socially connected e-patients are changing healthcare … as it says at the top of the e-patient blog, “because health professionals can’t do it alone.” Thanks for getting it!
Thanks Dave – keep up your good work in this area!
Thank you too for your personal sharing of experiences, and for taking the initiative to make these more widely available through print. Whilst you started blogging your experiences several years ago, it was the publishing of these as a book that I believe brought significant change in 2010.
Some of that change may yet have to be seen in a tangible way, since much of it is simply a change in attitude, but I believe this is a start in the right direction towards better engagement between patients and healthcare providers using the Internet.
Your book and your shared experiences move the kind of discussion taking place amongst many healthcare stakeholders from the theory of how could or should they engage with patients online, to discussion about what is possible, and what is lacking, using a real example: your story.
I am a follower of e-patients.net and during the last two years when I was reading Dave’s posts, I was wondering what kind of a person he is. Well, I had the opportunity to meet him and be classmates with him for a week last December at Salzburg Global Seminar. All I can say is that his energy and passion are viral, they energize everybody around. He has an extensive and deep knowledge of all whereabouts of healthcare, he is frank and outspoken and has an urgency to see things getting done.
A very different kind of health advocate from what I have met till now. Dave is an inspiration for many patient advocates around the world and he works relentlessly to spread the word about participatory medicine.
Thanks Dave for all the great content you bring us, your comraderie and positive thinking.
Kathi, I don’t know what to say … your words amaze me. To me, YOU are the iconic e-patient, passionate and tireless. It was wonderful to spend that week working with you!