Patient, Doctor, and the Data: Emergence of the Third Player

The conventional model of medicine had only two players. The doctor alone had access to all medical information and his encounter with the patient was the only way to obtain health-related information. The dawn of the information age led to a change in the dynamics in this relationship. A consumerist model of healthcare has emerged where doctors partner with patients in managing the patient’s illness. The advances in systems biology, big data and consumer health care electronics will add patient data as a new element to the patient-physician interface. In the next decade, individual patients will generate billions of data points (Observations of daily living, symptom logs, biomarkers, genetic tests) that will reside in their personal data cloud. There will be development of analytical tools and models that will utilize this data to supplement the physician’s decision making and disease management. This patient cloud will interface with both patients his healthcare providers in a continuous, real time manner which will be paradigm shift in patient-physician interactions. This new addition to the conventional patient-doctor relationship has the potential to improve the practice of clinical medicine. The typical patient-physician interaction is aimed at being a patient-centered and inclusive of the physical, psychological and social aspects of patient’s ailments. The physician-patient interaction is expected to provide emotional support to the patient and provide counseli...
Source: Society for Participatory Medicine - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Newsletter e-patient movement empowered patient Moral Injury participatory medicine Patient Participation Source Type: news