Power to the Patient!
Last week in Budapest I had the thrill at delivering a guest lecture at Semmelweis University, in the Healthcare Social Media course created by 28 year old wizard and “medical futurist” @Berci (Bertalan Meszko). I’ll have more to say later but I want to get the video posted, because friends familiar with my work are saying “Wow!” about this new approach, and I want to hear why, in the comments! Please speak.
Timeline:
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Last week I blogged about the Mayo Clinic social media fellowships. Here’s a picture of the sheet.
Today Mayo posted the videos of everyone’s talk on their blog. I want to especially highlight the other four people. As the blog post says, they’re all real stars of social media in healthcare, each in a different way. I’ll introduce each with their twitter handle and a snip from Mayo’s blog post.
@MeredithGould: Meredith Gould, Ph.D. is an elder in the #hcsm community (really, she’ll take that as a compliment!) who greatly assisted #MCCSM in its infancy.” [MCCSM is the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media.]
Meredith, as usual, put together an irreverent and fun one minute video.
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Let Patients Help is a successful book, but in the early days of its movement, it was common to hear skeptics say “This is only in America.” Boy was that wrong.
The first massive proof was TEDx Maastricht, the seminal event constructed by Lucien Engelen from Radboud UMC (university medical center) in the Dutch town of Nijmegen. It was such a big deal – the first conference I know of anywhere that was totally focused around patients … so many patients that a blogger Grand Rounds was devoted to videos of the talks patients gave at that event.
It was the first time anyone heard the chant “Let Patients Help” in a TED Talk, and the response has been enormous: almost a half million views so far on TED.com. TED says there’s usually the same number on other sites, so that means almost a million views. Volunteers have added subtitles created in 26 languages, so I’d say it’s not “only in America.”
This fall, Europe goes “e,” big-time, with four events in one month.
In November four events in four European customers will focus on Let Patients Help, all driven by visionaries who are seriously working on patient engagement – in Athens, Budapest, Amsterdam and Brussels.
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For years we in the participatory medicine movement have been talking about the need to involve patients in all aspects of medicine – not just our own cases but even in the design of the whole system. The movement is exemplified by the Patients Included badge at right, created by Dutch health visionary Lucien Engelen.
Today I’m speaking at a truly extraordinary healthcare event in Hartford – it’s completely about, for, and aimed at the public – us ordinary people:
Over 500 local people (aka patients) are attending. For more, see the event’s website.
In my talk I’ll mention various resources participants can look up, to learn more about the movement and boost their own abilities. I’m going to publish this post now, and through the day I’ll add various things as they come to mind.
BIG thanks to the event’s organizers, the CT Partners for Health partnership and its founder Qualidigm. Here are some starter links: [Read more…]
It took a month to get through the first five posts in this series, all based on the notes Randi Redmond Oster took from one thirty minute phone call. THAT’s getting value out of a conversation.
And that leads to this next point, which is short and simple. As you consider what to say to your audience, ask yourself this:
What could be said that would make any difference?
You may get frustrated by this – you may think people should think the way you do, or you may think people should want to hear what’s on your mind. You’re welcome to those feelings; heaven knows I’ve had them. But my point here is: if you want to make a difference in the world, by speaking, you better think about what could make a difference.
A lot of speeches I hear seem to have been written without wondering about that. Except for purely academic events, it’s not enough to recite facts. In academia it’s okay to say “I presented the facts – my work is done.” But if you’re advocating – if you want to change the world – that’s not enough. For instance:
Updated Dec. 30, 2015. See the changes under the blue headings.
In 2013, in A turning point for patient voices and Prices must have integrity, I laid out my thinking: a professional price policy must make sense, and the rules must be real – fair to all clients and consistently enforced. Re “making sense,” I’m an evangelist – an activist with a cause – so my price policy offers ways for clients to earn discounts by furthering the cause.
Update as 2016 starts: As the seventh year of this work starts, three things are newly clear, different from any past year:
As you’ll see, those three factors are reflected below. Here is the policy, fully aligned with my values as an activist for the “Let Patients Help Heal Healthcare” social movement.
Event organizers, call or write for my current speech pricing. As my testimonials page shows, I deliver.
It’s time to start engaging the public (ordinary citizens) in patient engagement – teaching people the rationale for (and the how-to’s of) being engaged, activated partners in their health and their care. So, if I’m doing a speech for you, I’ll do a second speech open to the public (and tuned to them), if you will handle the logistics and get it promoted in the local media … and I’ll knock 25% off the price of your speech. (Note: a particularly great target for these events is community health workers.)
Yes, I’ll do two speeches for less than the price of one. In essence I’m buying your help in spreading the word to the general public.
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