blogging, general - Three Duties of A Medical Blogger

As a medical blogger. I have three essential duties:

1) To access accurately healthcare trends, to make predictions that matter, and to remind you occasionally when those predictions are coming to pass.1.

In my January 11, 2007 blog, Twelve Predictions for 2007, I predicted:

"Taking care of health problems of employees, both on an acute and chronic basis, at the worksite will become a growth industry. American HealthWays has made a science of reaching chronically ill clients both at home and work with protocol-bearing nurse extenders. Their evidence-based programs provide specific and personalized interventions for each individual in a population, irrespective of age or health status, and are delivered to consumers by phone, mail, Internet and face-to-face interactions. American HealthWays is contracting with a number of Blues plans and large employer grous. Niche companies, led by physicians and often using Internet technologies, are springing up at the edge to supply workplace health services... These include onsitedoctor.com and teladoc.com. These various efforts could be characterized as disease management at work."

On January 14, three days later, the New York Times carried an article entitled: "Company Clinics Cut Health Costs," with these opening two paragraphs.

“Frustrated by runaway health costs, the nation’s largest employers are moving rapidly to open more primary care medical centers in their offices and factories as a way to offer convenient service and free or low-cost health care.
Within the last two years, companies including Toyota, Sprint Nextel, Florida Power and Light, Credit Suisse and Pepsi Bottling Group have opened or expanded on-site clinics. And many employers are adding or planning to add even more clinics, which were experimented with about 30 years ago but fell out of favor amid questions about their cost-effectiveness.”

2) To write of how patients and doctors can create clinical partnerships, communicate with each other better, and strengthen the patient-doctor relationship. I have done this with a 20 part series on “Building Patient-Doctor Trust” and a current series on “Your Doctor and You.”

3) To direct you to the work of other bloggers who are contributing significant insights into the inside workings of the healthcare system.

That said, I bring your attention to this January 23 blog, http:///www.healthcareguy.com “Improving Patient Communication Often Leads to Improved Healthcare,” by Shadid N. Shah, CEO of Netpective, a software consultancy delivering in-house, outsourced, and offshore solutions.
Here’s an excerpt.

What I liked about Emmi was that it facilitates physician-patient communication by providing “prescription-strength” multimedia programs to help patients understand what to expect before, during, and after a surgical or invasive medical procedure. As most of us who’ve been in this industry for a while intuitively get, the more a patient knows and understands about their care providers, their diagnoses, and their procedures, the better the patient’s overall health is likely to be

And this January 22 bog, www://www.thehealthcarelblog.com by Matthew Holt, a noted healthcare analyst and astute observer operating out of San Francisco., This particular blog, “A Nice Conversation with Brent James,” features an interview with Brent James, M.D., Dr. Brent James at Intermountain Health Care in Salt Lake City, is a giant in health care, a physician who has provided national leadership on the quality, safety and industrial processes movements. He is executive directors of the Intermountain Institute for Health Delivery Research in Salt Lake City. He's been active at the Institute of Medicine, and recently served as a panelist on the Citizen's Working Group in Healthcare. At 11,956 words, this may be the longest blog on recent record, but it’s worth the read if you are a thoughtful observer of the American healthcare scene.