Toward a New Science of Patient Engagement
Sunday I wrote about the accelerating environmental changes I’m seeing, and how hard it’s become to think ahead. I wrote about a series of wire tree sculptures I saw in a shop that day, which instantly conveyed how it feels to push forward in that environment.
The next day I drove to Vermont to meet artist Randy Adams, selected this one and bought it. (Each sculpture is unique.) It’s perfect for the mood of the time: stiff, strong, resistant.
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One of my aphorisms in speeches is “If you live long enough, things change!” It always gets a laugh, but damn it’s true, and it’s happening faster and faster. So as I study the arriving future, I’m starting to feel like the severely windswept trees in the photo above. It is not pleasant, because how would you plan any campaign if all the rules were guaranteed to keep changing?
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Editor’s note: I’m enthusiastic enough about this that it may sound like a commercial, but it’s not, except that it’s a great example of the change I want to see in the world! I have no stake in this, and The Medical Futurist Institute makes no money on this, including related services. It’s a public service.
As patient empowerment spreads and gains acceptance, I’ve repeatedly observed an important gap: patients and clinicians, especially in primary care, are not sure what to do about this big “internet” thing. It’s not enough to encourage googling, because there’s junk on the internet. The best of all worlds is when my trusted authority – my primary care provider – is also my trusted guide to apps and websites.
But how do we structure these discussions? Most clinicians have had no training.
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Fifty years ago today, at Emmanuel College in Boston, a group of uppity women got together to talk about what was important to them about their health. Tomorrow night (Friday, May 10) some of them will gather again, with people from Suffolk University, which is taking over as Our Bodies Ourselves Today. (See that post.)
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In our previous episode I mentioned that “ornery” is a form of the word “ordinary,” and said “It’s the ‘ornery’ people who suffer when the system doesn’t achieve its potential. I stand with them.”
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Sunday night I blogged this:
I haven’t been blogging nearly as much as I did five years ago, largely because my early blogging was all about trying to figure out “what the heck is up with the American healthcare system???” … it’s been two years since I had any new realizations.
Why would “figuring it out” make me stop blogging? Because as a change activist who’s also a public speaker, I’m gripped by one question: “What could be said that would make any difference?” There literally is no point in saying anything else. So once I realized how locked-in the system is, how intractable it is to change, I lost interest in flapping my gums and fingers.
But new things are in the wind, and it’s time to start pushing out those top learnings as foundation for what’s next. So, game on – in responses to two tweets, I got ornery:
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