As 2009 comes to an end, we want to take this opportunity to thank all of our members, partners and general fans for another great year. Here’s a recap of some of the exciting happenings at PatientsLikeMe these past 12 months. Wishing you all a Happy New Year! Community MilestonesThis year, the 15+ disease communities… Continue reading A Year in Review: PatientsLikeMe in 2009
Tag: Openness
Sharing, Openness…and Privacy?
Every so often, we sit down to try and make our business objectives clearer to our patient communities. Why? Well, we can’t have a business without you and our communities can’t exist to help patients without a business. This often results in our Privacy Policy and User Agreement being updated to help clarify our goals… Continue reading Sharing, Openness…and Privacy?
The Smart List (Forget Medical Privacy) and The Future of Healthcare
Check out the October issue of WIRED magazine! PatientsLikeMe makes “The Smart List: 12 Shocking Ideas That Will Change the World.” In an interview with Brendan Koerner (“Forget Medical Privacy“), Co-founder Jamie Heywood talks about how “the lack of openness [in medicine] is making us sicker” and how sharing individual health data can benefit you. … Continue reading The Smart List (Forget Medical Privacy) and The Future of Healthcare
Charting the course of PLS and PMA
Primary Lateral Sclerosis (PLS) and Progressive Muscular Atrophy (PMA) are two rare variants of the disease ALS. Normally, ALS affects the upper motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord, as well as the lower motor neurons that send signals from the spinal cord directly to muscles. PLS and PMA are different because PLS only… Continue reading Charting the course of PLS and PMA
Patients like me declare our health data rights
“We the people…have the right to our own health data.” That’s part of a collective new Declaration of Health Rights, officially unveiled tonight on the newly launched HealthDataRights.org. It is time to turn the conversation from fear and privacy to sharing data and finding new treatments and better care. The Declaration represents reality that what… Continue reading Patients like me declare our health data rights
Sharing Is A Right As Well
We do not live our lives alone. We live our lives in collaboration with others. We communicate our needs and our goals, and together we work to achieve them. This is exceptionally true for families and individuals dealing with illness. Whether you’re dealing with depression, or pain, or perhaps the fear and stigma of HIV,… Continue reading Sharing Is A Right As Well
Introducing “The Patient Voice” – First up? Inpatient Therapy
Today’s patient has a loud and strong voice. At PatientsLikeMe, we hear you. You’re saying, “I know this disease, I know how it acts in the real-world, and it’s time to share that with others.” With thousands of patients sharing data and experiences every day on our site, we’ve decided to launch a report that… Continue reading Introducing “The Patient Voice” – First up? Inpatient Therapy
Sharing to Feel Better
Sharing. It’s a concept we all learn at a very young age. Oftentimes reminisced as happening in the sandbox, we think back to our young selves giving up what we hold most dear (in this case, some cheap plastic toy) to allow someone else to benefit from it. It seems so simple and obvious, but… Continue reading Sharing to Feel Better
We Share Too! Contributing Open Source Code
“Open source software” is created and improved collaboratively, over the web, by the people who need it, even if they work for different companies in different industries on different continents. Similar to our Openness Philosophy, the premise behind open source software is that none of us is as smart as all of us. Software developers… Continue reading We Share Too! Contributing Open Source Code
Structuring and Presenting the Patients’ Perspective at AMIA
PatientsLikeMe members share health data on the site adding their own individual-level health experience to a repository of structured outcome data. The result? An unprecedented data set that informs medical conversation not only within the patient community but also with the larger scientific one. Earlier this fall, the venue for this conversation was the annual… Continue reading Structuring and Presenting the Patients’ Perspective at AMIA