e-Patient Dave

Toward a New Science of Patient Engagement

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“Superb! Superb! No other word for it. A knockout.” So, a winter sale!

A quick update on two aspects of my speaking business:

  • As the post title suggests, the “consultative speaking” approach I use continues to bring great results. (Yes, that’s what the client said.)
  • I’m offering a winter sale because I have more capacity in my calendar than usual in the coming months: half off my usual speaking fee for any bookings with contract signed by March 31. Bring it on! Use the contact page.

Recent speeches have been to audiences of software developers in Amsterdam, innovators (Exponential Medicine, San Diego), and a medication security company customer event then their internal company meeting (TraceLink, Chicago and Boston), and though the audiences were very different, each got very strong response, because every speech is carefully tailored to the sponsor’s needs.

My topics have expanded beyond the traditional “Dave’s cancer story” and “about e-patients.” In addition to custom requests, topics now include
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A blast from the past, yet still fresh: “The Future of Patients”

I just ran across this classic video from WAY back – 2010, when the “e-Patient Connections” conference was the best thing on the circuit for our kind of thinking. Pharma marketing wizard Kevin Kruse created the script, and my chorus buddy Fred “Houston” Gallagher helped me record my part in his basement studio.

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Alumni club dinner: How e-patients can help healthcare achieve its potential

After eight years of speeches at conferences, I’ve observed that while medicine achieves incredible miracles that were impossible a generation ago – like saving my sorry life – it still falls short of potential more often than necessary. Lots of people write big fat books about it, but some problems don’t change, which raises the question: what can we tell consumers of the system, patients, that will help them get the best care when they’re in need?

So that’s a new series of speeches I’ll be doing, not just at big conferences but at local meetings in cities and towns, hospitals and community centers. These talks aren’t designed to change the healthcare system much; to the contrary, they’ll empower ordinary people who use the system to help the system do its best.

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The power of “consultative speaking”: keynote at Leapfrog Group’s annual meeting

This is the latest in the Speaker Academy series, which started here, but it’s also intended for my potential speaking clients.

I do what I call “consultative speaking.” It’s precisely comparable to consultative selling, in which “the emphasis is on what the potential customer wants and needs.” In one sense, I learned this in industry when I worked in marketing – every speech to any meeting has to be focused on the audience’s interests and concerns, or they’ll dive into their emails. In another sense, I learned it from Kent Bottles MD, who said that he always asks clients, “What outcome would make you say that I really knocked it out of the park?” Today, thanks to Kent, with every speaking client I have what I call a “home run call,” and build my speech around that.

Today I’ve uploaded the video of a speech I did in December for The Leapfrog Group‘s annual meeting.

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