e-Patient Dave

Power to the Patient!

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Schedule

Highly rated international speaker and author “e-Patient Dave” deBronkart delivers custom keynote addresses tailored to the needs of your audience. See videos of past speeches, testimonials, and contact information.

Delivering the opening keynote at Medicine 2.0, Toronto, September 2009
My first keynote – the opening keynote at Medicine 2.0, Toronto, September 2009 – the original “Gimme My Damn Data” speech. Photo: Gunther Eysenbach, Creative Commons BY-SA

Spring 2025

  • April 12, virtual (Luzern): IKF e-Health Course. Annual lecture.
  • May 10, Madrid: HL7 Workgroup Meeting. Patient empowerment participant
  • June 2-5, Amsterdam: DevDays FHIR Developer conference. Patient participant.

Summer 2025

Past events

Earlier events, 2008-2015, are on the past events archive page.

Past Events – 2016

  • January 8, The White House: Dialogue on Men’s Health.  Panel.
  • January 13-15, Palo Alto: diaTribe Foundation. Executive Innovation Lab on Diabetes and Obesity. Participant.
  • February 16, New Jersey (via Web): The College of New Jersey, New Media and Health Communication Course. Guest lecturer.
  • February 17, Raleigh: ProPatient content production.
  • February 25-27: Private retreat.
  • March 1-2, Alberta: Alberta Health Services, HPSP 2016 Healthcare Providers Conference.  Keynote.
  • March 5, Trento, Italy: IBA Proteus User Meeting. Keynote.
  • March 8, London: The BMJ Awards judging. Cancer Care Team of the Year category.
  • March 14, San Antonio: 2016 Parenteral Drug Association Annual Meeting. Keynote.
  • March 15, Austin: Dell’s Healthcare Think Tank. Panel.
  • March 24:  Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Lecture.
  • March 29, Cambridge, MA: New England HIMSS regional meeting. Speaker. Open to the public; discount or free to SPM members.
  • April 1-2, DC: FHIR Code-a-thon. Part of 2016 Health Data Palooza.
  • April 4-7, London: Private event.
  • April 13, Ontario: eHealth Centre of Excellence, Partnerships in eHealth. Keynote.
  • May 1, Cambridge: MIT Hacking Medicine 2016. Judge
  • May 3, Boston: NEHI One Health Care Summit. Featured speakers Eric Dishman and Susannah Fox. Attendee.
  • May 8-10, D.C.: Health Datapalooza. Attendee.
  • May 11, Sacramento: Indian Health Services California Providers’ Best Practices & GPRA Measures Continuing Medical Education. Keynote.
  • May 12, Newport Beach, CA:  Compassionate Care Coalition of California 8th Annual Conference & Summit. “Ignite, Inspire, Innovate.  Taking Palliative Care to the Next Level.” Keynote.
  • May 18-19, SanDiego: Private event.
  • May 19-21, Grantsville, MD: Cinderblocks3. The Partnership with Patient Continues.  Speaker.
  • May 21, Webcast, live from Cinderblocks (above): IKF, Switzerland. Lecture and e-patient interviews.
  • June 2, Vic, Spain: 3rd University of Vic Health Meeting. Speaker.
  • June 3-5, Brussels: European Cancer Patient Coalition. Speaker.
  • June 10, VT:  Dartmouth-Hitchcock Communications & Marketing Team Retreat.Speaker.
  • June 11-14, New Orleans: American Diabetes Association 76th Scientific Sessions. Consultant to diaTribe.
  • June 14, Shanghai, via video: Private event. Speaker.
  • June 22, Boston: Harvard Medical School: Rogue Therapeutics. Closing Keynote.
  • June 26-29, Geneva Switzerland: Nursing Informatics 2016 Congress. Opening keynote – open to the public!
    • June 27: Health Information Technologies for Geriatrics: The Big Picture.Panelist.
  • June 28, Europe: Private event. Keynote.
  • July 14-15, D.C.: Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation Steering Committee.  Advisory.
  • July 26, Southeast: Private event. Keynote.
  • August 8, Concord, NH: Foundation for Healthy Communities. Keynote speaker.
  • August 14, San Diego: AADE16 Pre-Diabetes Day (American Association of Diabetes Educators annual meeting)
    • Brief statement at end of Donna Ryan’s keynote
    • Panelist presenting on e-patient communities, 9:15
  • August 17-19, Orlando: IEEE EBMC ’16. The Quantified Self: Visions for the next decade of persistent physiological monitoring.
    • 8/18, 1:30 pm: panel presentation: “I Barely Survived Cancer and Nobody Knows Why”
    • 8/19, 8 am: session on e-health papers – co-chair
  • August 25, Boothbay Harbor, ME: Boothbay Region Health Center. Speaking, participating
  • September 3, Switzerland: Hirslanden National Academy, private event. Speaker.
  • September 13, Columbus OH: Aultman Hospital. Independent Hospital Network Board Retreat. Speaker.
  • September 20, Bretton Woods, NH:  New Hampshire Hospital Association. Speaker.
  • September 20, 8:30 pm ET: guest on the weekly #HCLDR (Health Care Leaders) Twitter chat! 
  • September 21, Boston: HealthXL Global Gathering: Behavior Change, Chronic Disease Management, Patient Engagement. Speaker.
  • September 25-28, Santa Clara: Health 2.0 10th Annual Conference. Participant in patient awards.
  • September 29, virtual speech, Spain.  Participant.
  • September 30, Newton, MA: 9th Annual Kidney Cancer Symposium. Participant.
  • October 18-19, San Diego: MedCity News. Engage, Innovation in Patient Engagement. Keynote.
  • November 2, Denver: Colorado Hospital Association. Keynote speaker.
  • November 15, Chicago: Private event. Keynote.
  • November 17-18, Amersfoort, NL: Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre. 50th Conference of the Dutch Society for Obstetrics and Gynecology.  Speaker.
  • November 23, via webcast: University of Southern California. Lecture.
  • November 23-27: Thanksgiving holiday.
  • November 28-29, Chicago: Insight Night at RSNA. Speaker.
  • December 1: Private advisory meeting.
  • December 6-7, Washington D.C.: National Integration Academy Council (NIAC) meeting (project of AHRQ). Participant.
  • December 6, Washington D.C.: Leapfrog Group Annual Meeting. Speaker.
  • December 12, Washington D.C.: RTI PCOR advisory meeting. Participant.

Past events – 2017

    • January 6, Las Vegas: Digital Health Summit at CES: “Confronting the Sleep Epidemic Head-on.” Speaker and panelist.
    • January 9, webcast: Rotman School of Management. Lecture.
    • January 27, Orlando: Society for Simulation in Healthcare – “Patients: The Heart of Simulation” Research Summit. Opening keynote.
    • January 28, Dallas: Commission for Case Manager Certification New World Symposium. Final day’s keynote.
    • January 31, NH: Dartmouth Giesel School of Medicine. Guest lecture.
    • February 19-22, Orlando: HIMSS 2017
      • Monday 2/20 1:00pm: Dell Meetup at the Tweetup, Healthcare Consumerism. Participant.
      • Monday 2/20 4:00pm: Connected Health forum in the Philips Booth. Speaker.
      • Interoperability Showcase. Participant.

Past events – 2018

Past events – 2019

Past events – 2020

  • January 23, Cleveland: The IHE North American Connectathon. Two panels.
  • February 10-11, DC: Health Datapalooza. Patient participant.
  • February 21, New York: Video interview (private production)
  • March 6, Boston: 12th Annual Dana Farber Harvard Cancer Center Kidney Cancer Symposium. Participant.

— And then … lockdown —

Past events – 2021

Past events – 2022

  • January 18-21, virtual: HL7 FHIR Work Group Meeting. Patient Empowerment co-chair.
  • February 2: “Digital Health erfolgreich umsetzen” (Implementing digital health successfully) for IKF. Lecture.
  • March 7: Digital health podcast recording. Buoy Health.
  • March 9: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology – digital health web interview recording.
  • March 29, virtual: National Network of Libraries of Medicine  conference “Advancing Engagement through Research: New Trends and Opportunities.” Keynote.
  • April 19: “Promoting Patient Engagement through Clinical Trials.” Virginia Commonwealth University Health Sciences Library. Free, open to public.
  • April 26, virtual: “We Perform Better When We’re Informed Better: Partnering with Informed Patients.”  Pediatric Grand Rounds on participatory medicine. (Client is confidential.)
  • May 6, Switzerland (virtual): e-Patients, Patient Engagement & Participatory Medicine, Personal Health Data Rights. IKF e-health course.
  • May 10-11, Grantsville, Maryland: Cinderblocks, Regina Holliday’s annual grass roots patient gathering. Workshop leader.
  • May 19, Berlin: Opening keynote – BMC (German Managed Care Association).
  • June 6, Cleveland: FHIR DevDays. Patient Track lead.
  • June 16, virtual: Dysautonomia International Tenth Annual Conference. Keynote (see blog post with video).
  • August 20-22, Seattle: NRC Health Symposium. Keynote.
  • August 25, mid-Atlantic: Private corporate event. Opening keynote.
  • September 17-23, Baltimore: HL7 FHIR Work Group Meeting. Participant
  • October 11, DC: CARIN Alliance.
  • October 18, Philadelphia: Redox Customer Connect. Opening keynote.
  • October 26, virtual: FHIR Canada. Opening keynote. 
  • Tuesday, Dec. 6, Washington DC: Leapfrog Group Annual Meeting. Participant. 
  • Monday, Dec. 12, New York City: Innovation meetup. (Lower Manhattan)
  • Tuesday, Dec. 13, New York City: Disruptive Innovators CIO Forum. Panel moderator: “Optimizing the patient & clinician experience lifecycle.”

Past events – 2023

Fall 2023

  • September 21-22, Harvard: AI in Healthcare – two day event. 9/21 is all-day web conference; 9/22 is live on-site follow-up workshop. Steering Committee and participant.
  • October 6, Washington: Digital Service at CMS. Brown bag lunch speech and discussion.
  • October 18, Switzerland (virtual): IKF Digital Health course. Lecture.
  • October 30-31: Private event on ethical use of AI in patient-provider partnerships. 

Winter 2024

  • January 29-Feb 2 (virtual): HL7 FHIR Work Group Meeting. Participant for Patient Empowerment Workgroup
  • February 15-19, Amelia Island: Renaissance Weekend. Participant, panelist.
  • March 14, Orlando: HIMSS. Panelist speaking about “Casey QR code” IPS project.
  • March 18-20, Boston: AMIA Informatics Summit. Panel presentation – Patients in AI.

Spring 2024

  • May 14-16, Maastricht, Netherlands: International Policy Forum (speaker); ICT&Health Plenary speaker.
  • May 18-24, Dallas: HL7 FHIR Work Group Meeting. Participant for Patient Empowerment WG; IPS QR code project.
  • June 7, IKF, Bern: virtual lecture.
  • June 10-14, Minneapolis: FHIR DevDays. “Patients Use AI” Co-organizer and panelist
  • June 16-20, San Diego: DIA Global Annual Meeting. Multiple panels.

Summer 2024

Fall 2024

Winter 2025

  • January 27-30 (virtual): HL7 Workgroup Meeting. Patient empowerment participant
  • January 31: Plutopia News Network podcast: “Empowered Patients and AI” with Gilles Frydman and Hugo Campos
  • February 18, Munich (SAP Garden): Vitagroup HIP Summit. Opening keynote.

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Is Beth Israel lying, denying, or complying?

I am really irritated. My hospital has told me they’re not supporting the federally required FHIR standard (a “FHIR endpoint”) to let me access my health data. Is this legal??

—————

Important update: a robust Twitter thread is drawing lots of answers on whether this is legal. Some of it is “gray area” but among other things:

  • At present, even if their behavior is a violation, there’s no penalty!
  • But by end of 2023, if they don’t have this, they might not get any more payments from CMS!
    • That’s Medicare and Medicaid, which are about 40% of all US hospital revenue
  • There are three separate requirements.
    • System vendors are required (today) to offer a FHIR endpoint to their buyers (hospitals).
      • Well-known large vendors like Epic and Cerner offer it.
      • But Beth Israel Deaconess is its own system developer, and they haven’t created one.
    • Care providers (hospitals etc) aren’t required to buy them and offer them to patients (yet)
    • But by end of 2023, providers will have to offer this to patients, if they want to get paid by CMS (Medicare).

—————

Resuming the original post:

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Evolution part 3: February 2009 – the stage is set for an earthquake

Third in a series of retrospective posts, reviewing the ten years since my cancer and how my shifting perspective has altered what I’ll be doing from now on. I’m generally doing one post per year, but so much happened in 2009 that it’ll take several.

By the way, I added new items on my 2008 entry – things that later became important: an award I got for using data in my day job, and meeting @TedEytan. 

Forming the Society for Participatory Medicine

SPM handshake logoAt the annual “friends of Tom” retreat (Doc Tom’s friends) that I mentioned last time, that gang of crazies decided the time had come to become a medical society. In addition to deciding on a mission (patient-clinician partnerships) they talked about officers, and said “It won’t do to have this society run only by doctors, of course.” I think it was Gilles Frydman (founder of ACOR, where my patient community lived) who said it had to be a doctor-patient team. They looked around and pointed to the only pair in the room – Danny and me – and said we should be co-chairs.

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Ten years ago today: “Dave, there’s something in your lung”

Adapted from a slide I use in many speeches
Adapted from a slide I use in my keynotes

Some moments stick in your memory in vivid, multi-sensory recall. This blog post is dated ten years after such a moment.

Today I can still see the clock digits on my Sony desk phone when it rang at precisely 9:00 a.m. It was my primary care physician, Dr. Danny Sands. I’d had my annual physical on 12/29, and as a follow-up for a stiff shoulder, on January 2 I’d had an x-ray from one of the Boston Red Sox team physicians.

Patients around the world have told me they can relate to what happened when I answered the phone: what Dr. Sands said changed my life in an instant.

Dave, your shoulder’s going to be fine – it’s just a rotator cuff problem. But there’s something in your lung, and we need to find out what it is.

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Healthcare speaking & lectures

For speaker availability and bookings see the Contact page.

"e-Patient Dave" deBronkart head shot
Photo by Roger Ramirez, Chariot Photo. License: Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0.
  • Top spokesman for patient experience, satisfaction, and engagement as well as disruption in healthcare
  • TED Talk with standing ovation
  • High tech veteran who survived Stage IV kidney cancer and became global healthcare analyst
  • Well respected by medicine: Mayo Clinic’s 2015 Visiting Professor in Internal Medicine; HealthLeaders “20 People Who Make Healthcare Better”

See the Digital Health Manifesto I coauthored with medical futurist Dr. Bertalan Meskó in February 2018.

Cancer survivor “e‑Patient Dave” is an international keynote speaker and academic lecturer who consistently earns extraordinary ratings by understanding each audience to deliver the client’s unique objective.

In addition to hundreds of conference speeches, panels, policy meetings and corporate events, academic lectures have become the next frontier for the social movement of transforming the role of  the patient. Resources:

“Consultative speaking”

My approach in every case is to understand your specific needs and objectives. In business, consultative selling has become the norm, and it’s my approach to creating each speech. And as a culture change agent, I’m constantly interested in exploring with clients any new topic that’s appearing in their organizations.

Top healthcare topics, 2019

As the culture of medicine has evolved to newly recognize the role of patients in all aspects of health and care, explorations of patient engagement have expanded beyond my traditional topics of “Let Patients Help” and health data rights.  As a foundation issue in health and care, the role of the patient touches everything. Recently added topics:

  • Superpatients: Patients who extend science when medicine’s out of answers. Amazing, inspiring stories of ordinary people overcoming impossible odds. New book, January 2020.
  • “Let Patients Help” / e-Patients: Empowered, engaged, equipped, enabled and Health Data Rights
  • Patient Experience, Empowerment, Engagement: a business leader’s view: As co-founders of the Society for Participatory Medicine, my doctor and I are international thought leaders on partnering with patients, and I authored one of 2017’s highest-impact articles in Patient Experience Journal. With humor and insight, we share lessons learned from my many patient experiences and my business career about the value of hearing customer perspectives. We tie them to business outcomes in three domains: customer experience, business and social change, and cultural transformation.
  • A futurist looks at AI in healthcare: What’s the matter with Watson? Famously, IBM Watson failed to improve cancer care, blowing hundreds of millions in the process. I was part of the earliest meeting that found cracks in Watson’s intellectual armor – cracks that turned out five years later to be its “cause of death.” We’ll discuss the fatal flaws that made the Jeopardy genius stumble in oncology and how we should think differently about medicine’s AI-enabled future.

Additional topics

  • e-Patients: Empowered, Engaged, Equipped, Enabled. My classic topic, delivered hundreds of times in 18 countries.
  • The Elderboom: how engaging with patients can change the future of again. More than half the humans who’ve ever been 65 are alive today, and I’m one …. yet there are only 7,000 board certified geriatricians in the US. This looks like a care disaster, but it’s the next logical step: we have so many elders because medicine kept us from dying! How can patient engagement alter what’s possible?
  • Palliative Care: Let patients tell us what care really means. First keynote on this subject was to Compassionate Care Coalition of California; standing ovation. Video available on request.
  • Genomics and Precision Medicine: This knowledge really is power. I survived kidney cancer and nobody knows why. What’s becoming newly possible?
  • The opioid crisis: integrating behavioral and primary care.  Since 2012 I’ve been a patient voice in the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ)’s project to merge behavioral and mental health into primary care, the Integration Academy. The project has renewed urgency in the era of surging opioid deaths. Beyond opioids, all behavioral and mental health problems dramatically affect the patient’s role in health and care: Who can perform any job well if they have mood problems or worse? In this extremely current time-sensitive talk I will share the perspectives of the academics, clinicians and financial experts I’ve worked with and specific next steps providers can take.
  • Beating pre-diabetes with apps and a course at the Y: Type 2 diabetes is a major concern under accountable care and population health – but I’m living proof that change is possible. I got that diagnosis in my 60s and beat it by successfully changing my behavior, aided by e-health apps. I’ll share the story of how I changed my diet, walked a lot, then ran a mile (for the first time in my life!), became a 5K runner, and wound up with a cover story in a diabetes journal. As always I tell it with humor amid the insights, and and emphasis on the patient’s perspective on a chronic diagnosis.
  • Patient Empowerment Around the World: From New Zealand and Australia to Switzerland, Stockholm and Dubai, I’ve had the privilege of learning from audiences and sponsors in hundreds of events in 18 countries. OpenNotes, patient rights, transparency and cultural trends all vary widely, from the best (New Zealand’s avid adoption of e-health) to countries that openly advertise “Don’t google it – trust a professional!” What can we learn from the different stages of this rolling wave of social change?
  • Population health: the role of empowerment and engagement: The shift to accountable care means providers have more reason than ever to help patients  succeed between visits – but how to do it?? As a co-founder of a medical society devoted to patient-clinician partnership, I share from personal experience and evidence how medicine is starting to understand what empowerment and engagement mean in practical clinical terms. Using validated models from empowerment movements outside healthcare, I’ll explain how it really works (how it feels!), and how data, training, and access to coaching can transform what your patients achieve.
  • The Quantified Self: How the data patients collect, and apps patients develop, are changing what’s possible in managing their care. Examples: Hugo Campos, Dana Lewis / #OpenAPS, Michael Seres of 11Health
  • How Patient Voices are changing Academic Journals. As a member of the BMJ’s Patient Advisory Panel I’m seeing how both the publishing process and peer review are altered when the ultimate stakeholder (the patient) is invited to guide research.
  • MACRA, accountable care and population health: Let patients help! The shift from fee for service to accountable care means there’s plenty of reason to help patients be successful at home, beyond direct contact with providers and services. How to do it??
e-Patient Dave delivering guest lecture at Semmelweis University, Budapest
Guest lecture at Semmelweis University, Budapest

Academic and medical lectures

As our movement has progressed, the work has migrated beyond medical conferences into academia and provider institutions. I was the Mayo Clinic’s 2015 Visiting Professor in Internal Medicine, addressed the 100th annual meeting of the National Board of Medical Examiners, and have delivered Grand Rounds, seminars and lectures as part of courses, as well as honorary lectures. References available on request.

My intention in all cases is to serve your curriculum and your learners.

Let’s talk.

Visit the Contact page.

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Gin-knee-versary! A year since my wife got her unbelievable new knees from @HJLuks

Ginny at Half Moon restaurantThis is a verbatim copy of an extraordinary blog post last year, which I updated several times.

It was a year ago today that orthopedist Howard Luks @HJLuks replaced both my wife Ginny’s knees in one day, and as you’ll read, his method is so incredible that not only did she get no transfusions, her bandage didn’t even need to be changed until the follow-up visit weeks later. And as you’ll see, the progress of her recovery was extraordinary.

Want new knees? Read how Howard does it. Know anyone who’s considering new knees? Share this with them, please! I even gave it a memorable URL: bit.ly/ginnyknee

July 7, 2015

On Facebook Friday I posted this picture of my wife Ginny, saying “There is an astounding story behind this photo. Details Monday.” Well, it’s Monday.

As you read this, bear in mind, your mileage may vary – everyone’s different, this wouldn’t be appropriate for everyone, and Ginny herself played a big part in it.

The astounding story:

In this photo we were out to dinner, nine days after Ginny had both knees replaced. She walked into the restaurant using only canes – no walker, no wheelchair. The surgeon is Howard Luks, the social media orthopedist (@HJLuks), whom I met on Twitter in 2009, and the surgical approach he used is called muscle-sparing (or “quad-sparing”) minimally invasive surgery, part of a larger package of methods he uses, described below. Bottom line:

  • None of her muscles were cut
  • She had no transfusions
  • She has not needed to have any of her dressings changed
  • She left the hospital on day 3, was discharged from rehab 8 days after surgery, and today on day 12 we’re returning to New Hampshire, to continue outpatient physical therapy from home.

Of course she’s still on pain meds, tapering down, and her endurance is of course limited. But she is basically functional and able to live on her own if she needed to, or rehab wouldn’t have discharged her.

Here’s a video of her walking around the hospital floor – 500’ – with a walker for balance (not leaning on it), less than 48 hours after leaving the O.R., and on the right, at rehab, walking with just canes, a week after the surgery:

She was discharged from rehab after demonstrating (among other things) that she can safely walk up and down a full flight of stairs … six days after the surgery. She can get herself into and out of bed, into and out of our Prius, etc. She’s not speedy at any of it but she’s functioning reliably.

(Of course I have Ginny’s permission to talk about all this. Also, I’m an e-tool geek and she’s not, so I’m the one using the tools discussed here.)

Again, everyone, please read this: your mileage may vary – everyone’s different, this wouldn’t be appropriate for everyone, and Ginny herself played a big part in it.

The part Ginny played, as an activated, engaged patient

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