[indigogo]

An article in today's Seattle Times reports on Group Health Cooperative's (a big, locally headquartered HMO) initiative to regularly monitor online patient blogs and forums to actually learn something! Really interesting.

From "Group Health trolling cyberspace to learn what patients think"
Sunday, May 11, 2008

"Group Health has come to accept — if not always embrace — these blogs and other Web sites as the cyberspace version of office water coolers. A national leader in medical-information technology, Group Health recognized early that patients don't rely solely on physicians to inform themselves, said Dr. Ted Eytan, medical director of health informatics and Web services."

Read the whole story here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm..._blogs11m.html

[paula_w]

Interesting Carey.....it's a free internet, but I hope they know a little about the environment they are viewing, or maybe better said -hope they are using it as a learning experience in a positive way.

paula

[lou_lou]

Universal Coverage
5 TOP Capitalist DemocraciesAround the World -watch online:


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...rld/countries/



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...view/main.html

[gaykir]

I was curious about this so I did some checking to see who this group is. Here is what I found...

"Founded in 1947, Group Health is a consumer-governed, nonprofit health care system that coordinates care and coverage."

...this being the case, I would think it in their own self interest to keep a close ear to the consumer. If the press gets too bad they can not maintain a client base and would quickly go out of business right? Sounds like self preservation to me - I am not implying this is bad just making an observation about how they are governed.... even non profits do what they can to justify their existance and thereby keep their jobs.

[indigogo]

gaykir -

Group Health is a long-standing, much respected member of the Seattle area medical establishment. They have a long history of collaborating with the University of Washington Medical School on research, many of their docs are clinical faculty at the school, and they serve as a site for many doctoral residency programs. They are very active in the community, sponsoring health fairs and exercise and sporting events such as marathons and 5ks. I'm a little prejudiced, or maybe just know too much, but my son-in-law is a physician assistant in surgery there - he loves being on staff!

I think it is in their best interest to monitor what patients are saying about them publicly - also smart. They've long been perceived as being a progressive organization - I'll bet they are learning a lot!