“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The most exciting innovation of the connected health era is … people talking to each other.”

Susannah Fox from Peer-to-peer health care is a slow idea that will change the world on susannahfox.com, August 3, 2013

The concept of the empowered patient isn’t a new one – in fact, that characterization has evolved rapidly over the last several years. According to Health Online 2013 (Pew Internet & American Life Project, Susannah Fox) patients have actually advanced their level of empowerment from simple information-seeking to actual diagnosis – acceding to the report, 35% of American adults can now be classified as “Online Diagnosers.”

“As physicians, we have a moral responsibility to weigh in on dangerous inaccuracies in the media … Imagine a simple comment from … each of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ 65,000 pediatricians. We are in a position to own the search engines through our collective participation.” 

Bryan Vartabedian, MD from Participating in the conversation: A physician’s responsibility. Baylor College of Medicine Blog, August 7, 2013

We’ve seen a parallel movement among physicians in terms of online activity. Driven by a number of environmental factors. One of the most important is to balance the enormous amount of misinformation and spam online masquerading as health information – because doctors have the knowledge and experience to set the balance right. 

These two trends have begun to collide as never before. The best doctors are often the best students – they literally never stop learning and improving. Many of these leading-edge physicians have recognized that one of the greatest sources of learning are patients themselves.

Read more: http://blog.wcgworld.com/2014/01/the-new-exam-room-mapping-patient-physician-interactions-online

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