Some new “What if health care…?” dreams are circulating and since they are specifically related to my research, I have to call them out.
First, check out this article by Eugene Borukhovich about the power of DIY health care tools and self-tracking — and how we need to move toward DIT (do it together):
A new flower (flower bed?) for the #whatifhc garden. RT @doctor_v: Re-imagining Healthcare: a Radical Idea for 2013bit.ly/12JEnma
— Michael Seid (@michaelseid11) February 15, 2013
Then there’s the news that Aetna and PatientsLikeMe have teamed up, making peer-to-peer healthcare a little less crazy and lot more obvious:
What if a health insurance co. recognized the power of peer-to-peer healthcare? @aetna @patientslikeme bit.ly/XGjicR #whatifhc
— Susannah Fox (@SusannahFox) February 16, 2013
Related research:
Tracking for Health (2013)
Peer-to-peer Healthcare (2011)
Peer-to-peer Healthcare: Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. Obvious. (2011)
I’m thrilled & not surprised to see that two of my comrades-in-arms (or in spirit anyway), Aetna and PLM, are connecting. Both completely “get” the value in information. Completely. And I mean value to the *patient*, value in the sense of getting to the bottom of what’s going on and what to do about it.
It’ll be realllly interesting to see what other insurance companies, if any, do anything similar.
We live in interesting times, that’s for sure.
As I was scrolling through the e-patients.net archive to find that “crazy…obvious” post, I was thinking about other cataclysmic posts — your Imagine someone had been managing your data, and then you looked expose being at the top of the list. There are 21 trackbacks to your post — a collection of “yes, and…” evidence-builders.
I’ve been thinking about the impact of a great blog post, like Eugene’s (above), and how they can change the conversation about a topic. And then there’s the point in the conversation when it has changed so fundamentally that corporations and governments adopt the new ways, which is what we are seeing (I think) with the Aetna-PLM deal.
Very interesting indeed.
I was talking yesterday with a friend who is not in the health or tech industry, trying to explain very quickly how the internet has the potential to disrupt medicine, and she broke in, “Oh, like the story I heard on NPR the other day. Patients could contribute their own money to research and you’re saying they could contribute in other ways, too?” Yes!
Scientists Pass The Hat For Research Funding http://n.pr/YrQ1j6
Crazy, crazy, not so crazy because I heard it on NPR, obvious.
How the heck did I miss that crowdfunding thing on NPR?? Thanks!
Now to haul in a Dutch guy I know who just started MedCrowdFund…
I like it…. I really feel like collaborative health care is something that 10-20 years from now, we’ll look back and say, “And it was just a dream back then….” You know, I was at World Orphan Drug Congress last year and folks kept presenting on “patient-centered” health care. I had to stand and correct them – it’s not patient centered, where all the parties like providers, insurance, government, etc are doing things *for* us. It is “patient-partnered” health care, where we are an equal partner in the process. Our perspectives and ideas have equal value, and in some cases, greater value, in the process.
Thanks, Melissa! Let’s keep tracking those signs of change, including the vocabulary people use.
And apologies for taking so long to free your comment from purgatory. I can’t seem to get comments approved on my mobile – thanks for the patience!
Hi, Susannah. Thanks for your thoughts on this. We’re big fans of the “What if healthcare…” series. We recognized that if we didn’t take an active role in moving peer-to-peer health care from “crazy” to “obvious,” it would remain a concept rather than a practice for far too many. We’re pretty excited about the possibilities that PatientsLikeMe creates. We see this relationship as another way we’re helping our members take charge of their own health care, something we’re committed to making simpler and more convenient. PatientsLikeMe helps patients every day. We hope giving our members access to a wealth of real-world information and patient-to-patient connections will be a big step forward in advancing the health care experience.
Thanks so much! Great to have your perspective. And I’m tickled pink that you’re following the #whatifhc conversation — just updated with 3 new dreams today:
http://storify.com/SusannahFox/what-if-health-care?
Downside to such a long thread: you’ll have to click to load the next page quite a few times to see the latest. Upside: you might notice ideas you hadn’t seen before along the way.