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Patients want to collaborate with physicians, but are reluctant to do so

“Knowing they may need to return at some later time, patients felt they were vulnerable and dependent on the good will of their physicians. Thus, deference to authority instead of genuine partnership appeared to be the participants’ mode of working,” asserts a study into physician-patient relationships published this week in Health Affairs. The study’s title [...]

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Social media in health help (more) people take on the role of health consumer

One in 3 Americans uses social media for health discussions. Health is increasingly social, and PwC has published the latest data on the phenomenon in their report, Social media ‘likes’ healthcare: from marketing to social business, published this week. PwC polled 1,060 U.S. adults in February 2012 to learn their social media habits tied to health. [...]

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Wellness Ignited! Edelman panel talks about how to build a health culture in the U.S.

Dr. Andrew Weil, the iconic guru of all-things-health, was joined by a panel of health stakeholders at this morning’s Edelman salon discussing Wellness Ignited – Now and Next. Representatives from the American Heart Association, Columbia University, Walgreens, Google, Harvard Business School, and urban media mavens Quincy Jones III and Shawn Ullman, who lead Feel Rich, a [...]

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We are all health illiterates: navigating the health system in a sea of paper and financial haze

“Older patients, caregivers, and family members face growing challenges in understanding and navigating the nation’s increasingly complex healthcare system,” begins a well-articulated column called Why Consumers Struggle to Understand Health Care, in U.S. News & World Report dated January 27, 2012. Health literacy isn’t just about understanding clinical directions for self-care, such as how to take medications [...]

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help comes to health care: well-designed front-of-pharmacy DIY health products

Less is more when it comes to health care utilization and outcomes. The U.S. allocates too many resources to a huge line item of waste in the health system – administrative (in terms of too many paper processes and staff to deal with them) and clinically (especially involving duplicated tests and ineffective treatments that aren’t based on [...]

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