Patients get called a lot of things these days. Simon Stevens, for example, referred to them as the “renewable energy” of health services. The NHS White Paper called them “the […]
Patient and public perspectives
Philip van der Wees: Patient preferences to distinguish between good and bad practice variation
“Keeping good practice variation and reducing bad practice variation is a main driver for quality improvement in healthcare.” With this key message, Albert Mulley, professor at the Dartmouth Center for […]
Amy Price: Patients doing research for themselves
Patient rights and empowerment movements have grown exponentially over the last decade. Shared data movements and clinical decision making may employ slogans like “having a voice,” “nothing about me, without […]
Lucien Engelen: Flipping the coin from “for patients” to “by patients”
Although I still suspect my wife may have paid extra for a non-connected holiday home in the French Ardèche, it turned out pretty well to be honest. The first two days […]
Anne Forshaw and Rowena Merritt: How can we increase primary care access for patients from disadvantaged groups?
Disadvantaged groups of the population tend to have low rates of access to primary care, yet have a greater incidence of chronic diseases. Earlier and more frequent visits to a healthcare […]
Neal Maskrey: When paradigms shift
When paradigms shift it’s always disconcerting. Thomas Samuel Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962 and it’s become a decisive text on the nature of science. He used […]
Richard Smith: Patients harmed by misdiagnosed preferences
Linda is 58 and has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She would have preferred not to have surgery but was convinced by her surgeon that it would be the best […]
William Cayley: My Chief Complaint
My chief complaint . . . is with the chief complaint. One of the hallowed concepts in medical history taking and documentation is the “chief complaint.” Supposedly a way to […]
Helen Morant: Characters welcome
You’d expect an academic researching the influence of TV and games on children’s development to be presenting some data about violent games as causative factors in school shootings. But Sandra […]
Dawn Richards: A Canadian arthritis patient charter
In 2014 the Canadian Arthritis Patient Alliance (CAPA) undertook the creation of an Arthritis Patient Charter. The arthritis community in Canada has a history of collaboration, to which this project […]