e-Patient Dave

January 7, 2016 By e-Patient Dave 23 Comments

It’s time to adopt a good working definition of empowerment.

A major theme of my work last year was that it’s time to create a science of patient engagement (see blog posts) – a rigorous inquiry into what patient engagement is, what factors (parameters) increase it, which ones diminish it, develop some hypotheses that researchers can test. This was the theme of my visit to the Mayo Clinic as Visiting Professor in Internal Medicine in March and my tenure as NEHI’s Patient Engagement Fellow.

A science needs practical definitions. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions notes that until a field has an agreement on what a concept means, the practitioners in the field literally have nothing in common to talk about. I’ve seen that myself, when people talk about empowerment but the field goes nowhere.

It’s time for definitions.

Fortunately, a useful definition of empowerment exists.

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January 5, 2016 By e-Patient Dave 3 Comments

Careful and kind care, part 2: Slides & video from Maine Quality Counts

This blog post is formatted using a new method I’ve never tried before, with slides and video side by side. The video didn’t capture the slide images, but you should be able to watch the video and click the slides forward when it seems like a good time.

Email subscribers, if you can’t see the video or the slides, click the headline to come see them online.

This series of posts to start 2016 is motivated by a desire to help healthcare achieve its potential. I believe that’s not possible unless we’re clear about what the potential is and clear about the challenges and obstacles.

Before moving to additional subjects, today I want to go one step deeper on Dr. Victor Montori’s concept of care that is “careful and kind.” (See Saturday’s post, if you missed it.) I have three reasons to go deeper before moving on:
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January 4, 2016 By e-Patient Dave 1 Comment

The arriving future of tech in health(care): Lucien Engelen on LinkedIn

Radboud @REshape’s Twitter avatar

This is going to be a fascinating year, with a mix of social and technological change. On Saturday I started the year with The future of caring: careful, kind, “minimally disruptive.” Today I’ll flip to a completely separate channel: how technology is changing what’s possible.

Lucien Engelen, about whom I’ve often written, is the manically productive visionary at Radboud UMC, the Dutch medical center that sponsored my TED Talk in 2011. In particular, he’s head of their REshape Innovation Center … it’s fitting that @REshape’s Twitter avatar is a kid with a spyglass looking to the far horizon … far, but visible.

A post you should read:

Lucien’s just written a post on LinkedIn with his vision of what’s on the horizon and what is changing, now, already. It’s a short post but it’s a dense learning experience, with dozens of relevant links and a half hour of embedded YouTubes. Lucien’s view of the horizon is (a) different from most observers’, and (b) firmly grounded in what REshape is already doing, so this is not a distant pontificator’s view, it’s from the trenches, feet on the ground. With spyglass.
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January 2, 2016 By e-Patient Dave 7 Comments

A declaration of the future of caring: careful, kind, “minimally disruptive”

KER "Treatment That Fits" diagram — The basic idea of minimally disruptive medicine (from minimallydisruptivemedicine.org)

To start 2016, a vision.

In 450 events in 14 countries, I’ve heard a lot of thoughts about healthcare: its challenges, its possibilities, why change is hard, and who should do what to make things better. Easily one of the most inspiring voices I’ve heard is Victor Montori at the Mayo Clinic’s “KER Unit” (Knowledge and Encounter Research Unit). Here are two resources to briefly introduce you to his work; another will come later this week.

One of his fundamental principles is what he calls “minimally disruptive medicine.” While so many articles in magazines and journals complain about patient “compliance” (i.e. doing what the doctor dictated), the KER people are nearly obsessed by questions like “Will this work in the patient’s life??” and “Wait – is this what the patient really wants?” A great quick overview is on their home page.

In an email this morning Victor said:
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December 26, 2015 By e-Patient Dave Leave a Comment

Buy this GREAT “Love Your Melon” cap and a cancer kid gets one too

Melon cap Buy one of the excellent quality hats from Love Your Melon – a college startup – and they’ll give one to a kid who has cancer.

LOVE what they’re doing. This is my first year ever as a seriously active outdoor person, as part of my diabetes prevention work, and this cap is now mandatory every time I go out in the cold.

Check their Twitter feed and hashtag feed, their product range and their story, which sums up thus: “it’s an apparel brand run by college students across the country on a mission to give a hat to every child battling cancer in America. And 50% of funds go to childhood cancer research and assisting families with medical expenses.”

Seriously, I love this hat. Really well made, warm but breathable. I’ve never wanted a specific hat on my head when I go out, and this one I do. It’s so good, they sent me one for promotion, and ~~I’m gonna buy it.~~ I bought another one.

One special request: When you buy, specify Grandview University as the referrer – they’re the ones who clued me in and hooked me up, so be sure they get credit. Thanks!

December 21, 2015 By e-Patient Dave 1 Comment

Quick year-end wrap – and winter retreat.

Through Monday, January 11 I’ll be on reduced availability, for a period of “retreat and think.” It’s not a full-bore vacation; I’ll be reading and writing (and blogging), but I won’t be responding to most emails.

I can still be reached for anything time-sensitive and I will still monitor contacts from media and potential clients, per the Contact page.

Year-end wrap:

Here’s a list of my favorites on this site from 2015. I’ll repeat something I said in August:
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