Patient-Centered Health Information Technology Initiative

I will be doing a considerable amount of my blogging about information therapy (Ix) at the now-live Patient Centered Health Information Technology (PCHIT) blog. The Center for Information Therapy’s (IxCenter’s) new PCHIT Initiative will have an active learning community of clinicians hosted by me and Ted Eytan, MD, the IxCenter’s Senior Visiting Fellow, who is currently on [...]

Who Can Be an Information Therapist?

A colleague out in Seattle posted a great story, Information Therapy on the Go, about his experience in despensing information therapy (Ix) in taxis. The end of his post raised some questions: What is an information therapist? Who can be an information therapist? How can we train people to be information therapists in order to [...]

What Will Be the Biggest Disruption in Health Care?

Will the biggest disruption in health care be an Internet-based health care industry?  We already know that more consumers get answers to their health care questions on a daily basis from the Internet than from their doctors.  But do we think that online tools will evolve enough to allow consumers to organize and make sense [...]

Response to USA Today Article, “Communication Now Part of the Cure”

There was an interesting piece in last Wednesday’s USA Today, “Communication now part of the cure“. They published a Letter to the Editor I wrote (Continue reading “Get an ‘Ix’ with a Rx” ») on July 27 (page 10A).  Here’s the text:
Get an ‘Ix’ with a Rx
Joshua Seidman, president – Center for Information Therapy; Bethesda, [...]

Can Ix and PHRs Address the IOM’s “Crossing the Quality Chasm” Challenge?

The IxCenter published a white paper a few years ago entitled, “The Ix Evidence Base: Using Information Therapy to Cross the Quality Chasm” (available at http://www.ixcenter.org/publications/whitepapers.cfm). In it, we detailed the emprical evidence that supports the Ix role in addressing each of the 10 rules that Institute of Medicine (IOM) laid out for health care delivery [...]

Ix Across America: Integrating Information Therapy Into Practice Community by Community

We are eager to identify new strategies for helping practicing clinicians to make it easier to integrate information therapy (Ix) into their clinical workflow. One model that we have conceptualized is collaborating with leading local and regional quality leaders to stimulate Ix advancement in their own communities.
We are aware that this “Ix Across America” concept [...]

Who Will Be the Next Generation of PHR Users?

Looking at how young people use the Web for virtually everything from commerce to social networking, it’s not hard to imagine an increasingly virtual future health care world. If Don Berwick is right that at least half of current in-person clinical encounters don’t require a visit, this generation likely will change the character of US health [...]

Response to NYT Jane Brody Column on Understanding Doctors’ Communication

Although the New York Times took a pass on my letter in response to a Jane Brody column January 30 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/health/30brody.html?ex=1170910800&en=c1237335b6037a06&ei=5070), I thought others might be interested…
To complement the expert suggestions in “The Importance of Knowing What the Doctor Is Talking About” (January 30, 2007), keep in mind that most people are “patients” in the [...]

Next-Generation Consumer Portals

With Revolution Health launching its new consumer portal, a newspaper reporter called me earlier this week to ask what I thought about new efforts such as this….
It’s clear to me that—even though they generally don’t express it this way—consumers are clamoring for information therapy (Ix). And just to be clear, Ix is not simply a [...]

Are PHRs the next disruptive force in health care?

The Center for Information Therapy (IxCenter) holds periodic public webinars in addition to our monthly IxInsights webinars for IxAction Alliance members.  Typically, we get 20-40 participants for these sessions. Yesterday, we sent out a notice about a webinar we’re holding on January 23 on “Personal Health Records (PHRs) and Information Therapy: Transforming Health Care.“ Less than 24 [...]