Wimbledon is over (well done Andy Murray), but London still has a wealth of other treats to offer. A trip to the Science Museum, for example, where the Beyond the Lab exhibition is well worth a visit. It showcases nine “citizen science innovators,” selected to illustrate how people working alone in their own homes, can […]
Category: Tessa Richards
Tessa Richards: “Burnout shops” are bad for health
Burnout is a pervasive problem. Its high prevalence among health professionals is well recognised. But the extent of its impact on the quality, safety, and cost of patient care needs more scrutiny, agreed participants at the WELL-Med conference in Greece last week. “Fixing toxic workplaces rather than fixing the people” who suffer from working in them […]
Tessa Richards: “Millennials” seek to reshape health
What better place to debate how emerging technologies are transforming healthcare than the Silicon Valley? Bathed in sunshine, the Stanford University campus is a magnet for people with the vision and skills to create new futures, and Stanford Medicine X (#MedX) attracts health innovators from a wide range of disciplines. Now in its fifth year, […]
Tessa Richards: Fewer tablets, more self management support
It’s easy to lose confidence and withdraw from life when you become ill and lose your job. “Anne” struggled for 20 years with multiple long term conditions and a drug regimen of 28 tablets a day before going on a six week self management course which “turned [her] life around.” She and other patients spoke […]
Tessa Richards: Is your conference “Patients Included?”
The conference circuit is buzzing. If you are not physically caught up in the whirl there are plenty of colourful twitter feeds to follow—last week’s #EvidenceLive for example. Next week #Quality2015 will be a hot hashtag as around 3000 or so delegates will gather at this year’s International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare […]
Tessa Richards: Big data—jam tomorrow
Rest easy in your beds overworked doctors and ailing patients, for tomorrow, all will be well. Big data will revolutionise healthcare. Processes in creaky health systems will be streamlined, patients empowered, and outcomes improved. Upbeat messages permeated the air at the UK e-health meeting at Olympia in London this week (ukehealthweek.com). E-health is more a […]
Tessa Richards: When doctors and patients disagree
The Ashya King case has gone global, and in the UK is assuming Mid Staffordshire proportions. The law, as interpreted, would appear to have totally overlooked the best interests of a gravely ill child: to have parents who love and care for you at your side. Amid the media hullabaloo, unfolding events, heated debate, and […]
Tessa Richards: Go with the flow
Legend has it that the Anglo-Saxon king Canute believed his command could hold back the tide. Last week, Financial Times columnist Robert Shrimsley conjured up Canute’s image, as he describes how he went to his GP for a problem and the latter pleaded with him not to go to the internet for information. Of course, the […]
Tessa Richards: Health 2.0—new technologies and e-patients
“All changed, changed utterly.” W B Yeats’s famous line was triggered by the Irish rebellion in 1916. Close to 100 years on, it could describe how digital technologies and social media are changing the world; not least the world of healthcare. At the Doctors 2.0 & You conference—launched and led by Denise Silber, a Paris […]
Tessa Richards: The right to be supported to self manage disease
On the eve of the EU elections, reports and manifestos aimed at attracting the attention of newly elected MEPs and commission officials have been flowing thick and fast. A new one shortly to be added to their list has the working title, “Empowered patients are a resource not a cost.” It will set out recommendations […]