e-Patient Dave

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From Let Patients Help: “For patients: collaborating effectively with your clinicians” by Dr Danny Sands

In a Twitter chat this afternoon, friend Dr. Jack West noted that some e-patients are great to work with and others, not so much. It’s obvious we need to teach people how to do this effectively – both docs and patients alike … sort of a “patient engagement handbook.”

So I decided to publish this, from the “tip sheets” section of my book Let Patients Help: A Patient Engagement Handbook: :-) This part is written by my primary physician, e-patient pioneer Dr. Danny Sands.

Let Patients Help front cover

For patients: collaborating effectively
with your clinicians

By Dr. Danny Sands

  1. Appreciate that healthcare should be a collaboration among the patient, the patient’s caregivers and family, and clinicians.
  2. Be mutually respectful of each other’s contributions. Your physician is an expert in medicine, but you are an expert in you.
  3. Take responsibility for your health—healthcare is not a spectator sport: it’s participatory.
  4. Prepare for your visit: read about your conditions, review your record, make a list so you don’t forget, and discuss the agenda in advance. [Read more…]

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Vigilance is valid: New rule for the culture of safety

Photo of David NashDavid Nash is Dean of the School of Population Health at Jefferson University (@JeffersonJSPH) in Philadelphia. Last week at the Maine Hospital Association’s (MHA) Summer Forum he and I both spoke. His talk was titled “Demand Better: Revive Our Broken Healthcare System.”

I hear a lot of speeches, and this one hit me between the eyes in a number of ways, combining some facts I’d heard before in new ways, mixed in with personal experiences. I hope to blog about several of these points (with his blessing); this is the first.

The story

The appendix of Let Patients Help is titled “Stop the Denial.” It’s about the reality that medicine is inherently hazardous, and medical staff pretty much work without a net. As I like to say, “In my own work I live through the Undo key, but clinicians don’t have one.” And they don’t work in a system that prevents human error.

Result? As the book says,

Did you know that in the best hospitals in America, 1 in 20 surgical patients dies of a complication? After the surgery? [HospitalSafetyScores.org] (In the worst hospitals it’s 1 in 6.) Hard to believe, yes?

If you were considering surgery, wouldn’t that change your thinking? Wouldn’t it make “Let’s wait a bit” seem like a prudent thought?

[Read more…]

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“Let Patients Help” gets two wonderful reviews

Let Patients Help front coverI got two wonderful surprises this week about Let Patients Help – unexpected, very favorable reviews of this little book.

The first was Tuesday on the Health Leaders web site. (They’re the magazine for medical management that in 2009 featured Dr. Sands and me in their cover story “Patient of the Future,” then included us in their “20 People Who Make Healthcare Better.”) In What the E in e-Patient Really Means, editor Scott Mace shows that he really gets it:

I’ve made a career out of documenting the empowering effects of technology. In the 1980s, among other things, personal computers were a way to engage students of all ages through the interactivity of educational software. In the 1990s, the Internet equipped us to get the most current data. In the 2000s, Web services enabled us to build “digital nervous systems” that automated the publication of that data, and our ability to subscribe to updates through the power of technologies such as RSS and search technologies such as Google.

But here in the 2010s, it’s ironic that the most personal of data we generate – that about our health – remains locked in healthcare’s vaults for a variety of reasons. …

It’s a long, perceptive essay – almost 10% as long as the book itself! The items he cites are truly the core of the message. Well done, Scott.

The second was today in Oncology Times – someone tweeted that they’d just seen it. (Why do I only learn of these things through Google Alerts and Twitter??) In the “Practice Matters” column, Lola Butcher writes Let Your Patients Help You.

Lola is informed and funny. Excerpts:

If you don’t know what [e-patient] is, click here and get with the 21st century. …

It only takes about an hour to read but if that seems like too much, skip to the “tip sheets” at the end. … Look for two sections — “Ten Things Clinicians Say That Encourage Patient Engagement” and “Ten Things Clinicians Say (or do) That Discourage Patient Engagement” — written by deBronkart’s primary care physician and co-author, Daniel Sands, MD.
I’ll just take issue with this closing item:
deBronkart has a big smile and a humorous way of making his points but physicians who do not support patient engagement should be very afraid of him.

Afraid of moi??  I wouldn’t say they should be afraid of me, but they sure will feel uncomfortable as the new reality unfolds. And that’s happening with or without me – I only talk about it, to spread the word and shed light on what’s possible.

Thanks to both Scott and Lola for drawing attention to this little book. Its tummy tickles every time someone says something nice.

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Extraordinary praise for Let Patients Help from a CEO

Let Patients Help front cover

Since Let Patients Help was officially released on April 15 there’s been lots of praise. The most exciting just arrived today: a hospital CEO who’s making the book’s ideas into something of a mission, starting now.

On her blog “Executive Rounds,” today Leslee Thompson posted “Let patients help” and other things I am learning. She’s CEO of Kingston General Hospital in Kingston, Ontario, where I spoke two weeks ago at their “KGH Connect” event. Please go read her post; these excerpts show how much she gets it:

One thing I do when looking at my calendar is to imagine what a patient in my hospital would think about how I am choosing to spend my time and energy. Would they approve of me sitting in my office reading reports about how to improve patient satisfaction? No. So I head on up to the wards and talk directly to patients and families.

[Read more…]

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Please watch this TED talk

On May 10, at the KGH Connect conference in Kingston, Ontario, I met Dr. Brian Goldman; we both spoke there.  In 2011 he gave this 19 minute TEDx talk in Toronto; please watch it. It’s stunningly clear, grippingly told, and extremely important to understanding the real truth about medicine: it’s complicated. Really complicated.

Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?

He gave me a copy of his book The Night Shift, a chronicle of one night in the ER where he works. The night’s cases are interspersed with the stories and experience that come to an ER doc’s mind with every new patient who comes in. I’ll write more about the book soon. First, as preparation, please spend 19 minutes watching this. What did you learn? Any new thoughts?

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“If you’re interested in getting up to speed fast on patient engagement, Let Patients Help is your passport.”

Screen capture of Susannah's post (click to visit)
Click to visit Susannah's post

That’s what Susannah Fox just said on her blog.

It’s amazing: for years I’ve admired the wisdom of her research and insights at the Pew Internet and American Life project; heck, I quote her juiciest statistics in every speech I give. (To find them easily, I even suggested they create a tips page bit.ly/PewHealthTips – and they did, because they listen.) And since the book summarizes what I’ve learned in my travels, of course it’s in the book.

So imagine my surprise and pleasure when Susannah said today in a tweet [below right] that in Let Patients Help, she learned new things about her own data!

[Read more…]