e-Patient Dave

June 30, 2014 By e-Patient Dave 2 Comments

Interview on WebM&M: “What could be said that would make any difference?”

WebM&M screen grab — Click to go to the interview

Sometimes the wheels turn slowly. Last August I was invited to be interviewed for “WebM&M,” an online feature that I’d frankly never heard of. The invitation said

I’d like to invite you to be a featured interviewee on the topic of “The Role of Patient Advocacy in Patient Safety” for AHRQ WebM&M, the online case-based journal on medical errors and patient safety. The Web site represents the federal government’s major effort to educate practicing doctors and nurses about patient safety. Together with its sister site AHRQ PSNet, AHRQ WebM&M gets nearly a million visits annually. You can visit the site at http://webmm.ahrq.gov.

WebM&M is managed by Bob Wachter MD (blog, Twitter Bob_Wachter), with whom I’ve crossed paths a few times; I described his work and my impression in a post here a while ago, and let’s just say I’d jump at anything he recommends. So we did the interview, and it faded away into the backlog of things being processed (by somebody else :-)).

Then a few weeks ago, up popped the transcript, ready for review. A few quick edits, and voilá: In Conversation with…Dave deBronkart (“e-Patient Dave”). It includes an 8 minute excerpt of the audio.

Honestly, I’m thrilled to have been invited to do this. Thanks to Bob, to AHRQ (the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) … and to every single one of the clinicians and patient advocates whose thoughts and advice in these past seven years have given me these thoughts.

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June 27, 2014 By e-Patient Dave Leave a Comment

Links for my AANP presentation

A quick update – earlier this month I posted about presenting at the AANP convention (American Association of Nurse Practitioners) in Nashville. Here are links to the sites I mentioned. (I love it when people ask because they want to take action!) [Read more…]

June 21, 2014 By e-Patient Dave 7 Comments

On this day in history: Susan B. Anthony was found guilty – of voting

“Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” – Marie Shear, 1986. See other feminism quotes on the Wikiquotes page.

Recent speaking clients know that I often note the parallels between the patient movement and other cultural revolutions – the women’s movements, civil rights, gay rights, disability rights. (I mention disability issues less often, but it was disability advocate Ed Roberts who said in the 1990s, after years of struggle: “When someone else speaks for you, you lose.”)

As anyone who’s heard me speak knows, I don’t get overtly “radically” about it. But I’ve been at this long enough now that I do see patterns. And the patterns teach me that the way people see things now may not be how we’ll see them in the future … and it’s up to us all to speak the truth as we see it.

So when I returned from the week’s travels, my eye was caught today by Wednesday’s “This Day in History” in the Boston Globe:

In 1873, suffragist Susan B. Anthony was found guilty by a judge in Canandaigua, N.Y., of breaking the law by casting a vote in the 1872 presidential election.

The Feminist.org blog has a great post about it – here’s how they say they would have covered it, if they’d been around back then: [Read more…]

June 18, 2014 By e-Patient Dave 10 Comments

Nurse Practitioners: the best kept secret in healthcare

[Click to open PDF] Nurse Practitioner infographic from AANP.org/all-about-NPs

I’m speaking this morning at the annual meeting of Nurse Practitioners in Nashville. (5,400 of them!) I’ll have more to say after the event, but for now, check out this infographic. It’s one of the best information-packed posters I’ve ever seen … which is an indication of the professionalism and competence of the organization.

From Wikipedia:

Nurse practitioners manage acute and chronic medical conditions (both physical and mental) through comprehensive history taking, physical exam, and the ordering of diagnostic tests and medical treatments. NPs (within their scope of practice) are qualified to diagnose medical problems, order treatments, prescribe medications, and make referrals for a wide range of acute and chronic medical conditions.

Everyone these days talks about the shortage of primary care providers – ironic, because people with better access to primary care have better outcomes (duh). And nurse practitioners do exactly that, in many different settings. In an increasing number of states, they’re finally being authorized to practice independently.

Check it out!

June 16, 2014 By e-Patient Dave 21 Comments

“The Big Ugly” meets Speaker Academy #19: What’s up with expense checks??

This is the latest in the Speaker Academy series, which started here. The series is addressed to patients and advocates who basically know how to speak on a subject but want to make a business out of it. I’ll try to be clear to all readers, but parts may assume you’ve read earlier entries.

I’m really not happy to be writing this, but push has come to shove. Two thirds of my expense reimbursements are past due, and fully a third of them are more than 90 days out. I’ve seen some people stretch payments at times, but I’ve never seen anything like this.

The stories I’ve been getting about “gosh, sorry, there’s nothing we can do about it” or “gosh, the only person who can write checks went on vacation” or “we only print checks on Thursdays and she was out when she came back from vacation” are familiar, but this year they’re much more common. What’s up, healthcare? Is The Big Ugly coming home to roost?

I wrote about The Big Ugly last year:

… something I’m starting to call The Big Ugly – a wave of suffering that will happen as the medical industry contracts, and everyone tries to find ways to maintain their income. Unfortunately when an industry shrinks, everyone can’t maintain the same income. As anyone knows who’s seen an industry die (like mine, typesetting; or steel in America, or what Detroit went through), it’s painful. Good people get hurt, and organizations fight for survival.

It’s interesting, because the people I work with, for the event are good and almost entirely on time with paying my fees. But expense reimbursements? They seem to go through a different approval and payment process. I mean, things get lost in the expense rabbit hole, and even my good-to-work-with friends are unable to extract them.

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