Friday September 18th 12:30-1:30 Mayo Hall
We have an opportunity to make healthcare more—better results with lower costs. Some patients and doctors are already making a difference in the way they approach their healthcare:
1. Patients actively participate in health care decisions and drive their healthcare plan: they learn all about all options and they weigh them against their own values.
2. Patients get valuable information from other patients – patient communities can be incubators of valuable information.
3. The doctor/patient partnership in which each side deeply respects the other are conducive to better healthcare results, and deep satisfaction on both sides.
In this lecture, a series of patient and doctor stories will be used to illustrate the power of patient engagement and participatory medicine.
Ileana Balcu is a program manager for IT systems in the health care industry. In 2003 she lost a baby to preeclampsia (hypertension in pregnancy) and then learned about the power of patient communities through the Preeclampsia Foundation. She served as the Director of IT for them. After her second successful pregnancy, she felt a deep desire to help the doctors and nurses that took care of her to deliver better care. She found her peers in the Society for Participatory Medicine where she served as Communications Lead and Board Member at Large. She is passionate about IT, healthcare improvement, e-patients and teamwork.