Patient Centered IT

This post with the story of Bill Claxton a patient suffering from a rare neuroendocrine cancer called carcinoid is amazing. It shows how a patient claims a patient centered approach and achieves to succeed. Success is owed to

developing a surgical plan, and
assembling a multidisciplinary medical team

all done by himself. This is an outstanding [...]

It may be intuitive for some people for others not. The more you know the healthier you live. A study  investigating the influence of health literacy on the occurrence of hypoglycemic episodes in diabetic 2 patients reveals a significant relationship:
http://xnet.kp.org/newscenter/pressreleases/nat/2010/051910diabetes.html
The following quote depicts one main aspect of health illiteracy in this study
Serious hypoglycemic events occur [...]

A recent post by ROB LAMBERTS in The Health Care Blog about the importance of primary care physicians made me rethink the relationship of patients, doctors and information systems. To me the role of family primary care doctors is undisputable.
Part of the reason is given by ROB himself:
The solution from an overall cost standpoint [...]

This is a difficult issue. Facing economy in healthcare references some unsolved problems. If not unsolved then maybe only untreated or covered by daily practices which were not precisely developed with an economic perspective. Doing healthcare aims to literally take care of the health of the patient. Humanity may claim that the life and health [...]

Very important findings from a study commented in Healthcare IT News emphasize the significance of careful application of
Healthcare IT or Patient Centered IT tools. They are by no means a general purpose solution for anything what is wrong in healthcare nor a substitute for
face to face encounters between patient and physician. In fact an EMR [...]

A recent discussion in the
Health Care Blog caught my attention:
http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2010/02/by-matthew-holt—-the-not-huge-world-of-health-20-participatory-medicine-and—epatients-has-been-fretting-itself-about.html
I support Mathtew’s view:
So I’m bemused by Darthmed’s demand that “Health 2.0 – prove yourself quickly or step aside” Health 2.0 is part of a much larger societal process, and it ain’t going anywhere while there are sick people and while technology evolves [...]

With Patient Centered IT we try to document applications to put patients in control. This norwegian system for diabetes control shows this in an impressive way.
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/33376
“It would not been possible to develop this tool without involving people with diabetes over a period as long as two years,”
This is the central issue. Whether we deal with [...]

In The Healthcare Blog DAVID C. KIBBE opens the case for widespread EHR adoption.

http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2009/11/back-to-basics-toward-a-core-set-of-relevant-and-portable-personal-health-information.html
This excellent claim receives my full support. Anyway David considers the difficulty to have medical data available everywhere …
No, the reason why we as citizens lack routine access to even the most basic summary of our personal health information, and therefore can’t [...]

Our mind sits in an environment of intimidating complexity. Even if we learn about it every second of our life it’s just impossible to understand it completely. As a patient this huge discrepancy between the mere complexity of the human body and the poor knowledge we possess to handle it is the single most relevant [...]

Information, communication and education
Having the right information @ the right place @ the right time is usually what the doctor claims for doing an appropriate job for the patient. Doctors act on behalf of the patients needs. But what exactly does this mean? It implies that doctors know the needs of the patient. They [...]