Clinicians, fear the e-patient no more ; read this scholarly publication. #doctors20 #hcsm

Are e-patients, -- as for example, online patient bloggers or members of an online patient community -- attempting to serve as "amateur doctors" for other online patients? Those who read this blog know that that is not my perspective. I welcome the engaged, expert patient and wonder why it is taking us so long to give them their rightful place in health care. But many people are still uncomfortable with the online patient, even simply seeking information on the Web, let alone engaging with other patients. The Journal of Medical Internet Research has just published a very interesting research paper entitled "Managing the Personal side of health: How patient expertise differs from the expertise of clinicians" by Hartzler and Pratt at the University of Washington.

Methodology in brief:

The authors identify, describe and evaluate the significant differences between physician and patient expertise in dealing with patients online -- and through other channels, through the analysis of 735 online content sources. 360 sources were patient contributions generating a total of 3287 "recommendations", 375 were clinician contributions with a total of 3922 "recommendations." A recommendation was defined as: something to do, something to know, a way to approach a situation.

The findings:

One of the major differences between physician and patient recommendations, according to Hartzler and Pratt was the way in which the recommendations were expressed. The clinicians' recommendations were "prescriptive" whereas the patients expressed themselves preferentially through personal narratives from which the reader understands the information being provided. This approach in which the patient can read another patient's experience is complementary to the information that a doctor can provide, and has an important rôle to play in the healthcare process.

The authors' use these findings to make their own recommendations regarding the types of social tools that would be useful for patients...The good news is that they are in fact tools which already exist, such as the deployment of collaborative resource rating systems and other sharing tools as well as those which facilitate the identification of and engagement with other similar patients.

As for tools to protect patients against misinformation, the authors note that other studies have already demonstrated that this is not necessary, that patients know how to self-protect.

I invite you to read the full paper which is available free of charge.