Subtitle: Why communication technology matters.
I read last week’s BMJ obituaries, as I often do. (read the article HERE) The main tribute reflected on the work of Dr Warner Slack, who believed that ‘the patient is the largest and least utilised resource in healthcare’.
As I read further, I was astonished at the foresight of his vision. In the 1970s, with others, he set up the Center for Clinical Computing at Harvard, and created one of the earliest hospital information systems. He wrote much about clinicians and information technology, but the area I wish to focus on today is his vision of patient-clinician partnership, enabled by Information Technology.
Dr Slack trusted the agency of patients to use automation for their benefit decades ahead of his time. His underlying inspiration was that computing and information technology would empower clinicians and patients. He wrote about online patient communities, now a reality, with websites such as Patients like me and Smart Patients empowering patients to find out from others about the experience of their conditions, and the reality of treatment choices.
He also believed that patients should have access to their digital records, and now we have the OPEN NOTES movement.
I believe that patients need time to understand what we have told them, have the right to consider what we have recorded in their notes, and to consider the implications of their condition and the treatments that they are choosing between. This access, alongside health literacy, means that patients are on the therapeutic team for their own care.
I’ve had a look at the Primary Care Digital Services analysis of what we are working towards, and patient access to their clinical notes has been classified as High Input, Low Impact, meaning that it will be low down on the list of projects being progressed. I know that this is already part of the English GP contract, so it can be done. This week’s mission: to find out whether this access is coming across Scotland, across the Western Isles, and on Benbecula.
Also, to link the blog to the practice website and the practice patient participation facebook page. (Done)
I’m inspired by Dr Slack, whose ideas are so relevant to Realising Realistic Medicine.
Hebridean Adventures in Realistic Medicine 