Thursday’s edition of the National Public Radio (NPR) show Talk of the Nation (TOTN) had a segment on “Do-It Yourself Diagnosis on the Web” featuring PCHIT’s own Ted Eytan and online health guru, Susannah Fox (Associate Director of the Pew Internet Project). The first guest was an orthopedic surgeon, Scott Haig, who had written a piece for Time.com, “When the Patient Is a Googler.” (TOTN has both the audio and an interesting blog discussion that has emerged in reaction to the segment.)

Haig had recounted an experience with a patient who had spent considerable time researching on the Web to understand what to do about her knee pain and what medical professionals might help her address it most effectively. Without going into detail about Haig’s perspective on patients like this (whom he described as “brainsuckers”), it is fair to say that Haig did not appreciate this patient’s approach to information collection, sorting or sharing.

Fox shared some of the mountains of valuable data Pew has collected that tells us not only how many people are using the Web and who they are (demographically speaking), but why and how consumers use the Internet to make decisions. To me, providing empirical answers to these latter questions is where Pew’s contributions are most valuable (there are many estimates of usage that vary but basically tell us: most Americans use the Internet; health is among the most important reasons for using it; there are demographic differences, but growth among disadvantaged populations is growing rapidly; etc.). By answering the “why” and “how” questions, Pew really tells us a lot about the implications of the Internet and HIT tools for changing how care is delivered in the 21st century and why clinicians like Dr. Haig might want to reconsider how they react to the patient he describes (Fox says that Pew focus groups suggest that, otherwise, these patients will either switch doctors or “go underground”–keep acting on Web information but just not tell him).

Ted’s comments complemented the Pew data nicely, because more than how clinicians should “react,” Ted describes what clinicians and delivery systems can do (and what he has done at Group Health in Seattle) proactively. For their patients who want to use information from the Internet (and Pew’s data tell us most of them do), Ted described many strategies that clinicians can use to integrate that well into the care delivery process. Although Ted says the driving force is what is best for the patient, it ultimately has great benefits for the clinician as well.

I wonder if Dr. Haig might eventually agree with that.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 10:52 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.