e-Patient Dave

Power to the Patient!

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New hashtag: #PatientsUseAI!

These are exciting times for patient empowerment and all of medicine! Knowledge is power and generative A.I. is causing an explosion in it. Patients and families are finding that AI tools like GPT-4, Claude.ai and Gemini can profoundly improve their ability to be informed, empowered, and engaged in their care. Participatory medicine!

The other day Grace Cordovano, the extraordinary board-certified patient advocate, spoke a sentence that opened new worlds: “People need to realize: Patients are end users of AI.” Presto: new hashtag #PatientsUseAI, and an awareness campaign that’s starting right now.

Look at all the ways we’re already using AI to get work done:

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I’m thankful for care that cares – and for those making it practical

crop woman with heart on palms
Photo by Puwadon Sang-ngern on Pexels.com

This post is a departure from my usual: it’s about a specific company, for a specific reason. First, some background.

Since 2007, Thanksgiving has been a time of reflection for me. That’s the year I was diagnosed as almost dead, yet by Fall I got to hear “looks like you beat it!” What a Thanksgiving that was.

I know firsthand that when a person like me is in need, being cared for and about makes all the difference.

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“The AI Revolution in Medicine”: best book by far on AI in healthcare

The authors (L to R): Peter Lee, Carey Goldberg, Zak Kohane. Photo: Associated Press / Pearson.

I’ve been learning everything I can about what AI will do to help healthcare achieve its potential, and especially how it will help e-patients be stronger contributors. The game’s not over (this game will never be over) but so far, this is the book! The AI Revolution in Medicine: GPT-4 and Beyond.

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Our Sense home energy monitor saved our butts and our bucks.

Regular readers know I love data, especially my own health data. This post isn’t about health data, but it makes my favorite point: knowledge is power, and it’s empowering to know what’s going on. Am I right?

Last year we got a nifty thing for home energy management, and this summer it detected a small disaster in process that would have cost us hundreds of dollars. At the peak of AC season in July, this notification popped up on my phone one morning: my electricity consumption was FOUR TIMES normal:

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Casey Quinlan’s QR code dream starts coming to life – using FHIR!

Regular readers know about “Mighty Casey” [left]: a very outspoken advocate for patient centered care who died in April. As her BMJ obituary said, she notoriously had a QR code tattooed onto her chest, linking to her complete medical history … because nobody in the health system could or would gather it all. So she did it herself. That’s an empowered patient!

Well, it got the attention of people working in FHIR health data standards. And this past weekend, at an event called a “Connectathon,” they hacked together a starter version of Casey’s dream.

Here’s the result – scan this QR code with your phone (or follow this link … same thing). It produces a human readable version of some of my own medical data.

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