E-harmony for Patients:

Listening, learning, connecting

Neil Seeman
Getting to Uptake: Practice Change and the Science of Knowledge
Toronto Board of Trade, September 23, 2009
 Disclosures…

ƒ I am not an expert
ƒ I am not a scholar
ƒ Seed-funded by Ministry of Health
ƒ + conflicts of which I am unaware

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 Discussion

1. The Innovation Cell

2. E-harmony for Patients

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 1. The Innovation Cell

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 What is an Innovation Cell?

An Innovation Cell is an agile team that

fast-tracks ideas to action

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 • Listen and analyze patient
health experiences
• Create tools and processes
to promote patient
engagement and facilitate the
perfect health journey
• Seed and cultivate global
game-changing, patient-
focused healthcare
innovations
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 “Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone
else and thinking something different”
- Albert Szent-Györgyi (1937 Nobel laureate)

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 Building Global Impact
September 2009

1st research unit to “crowd-

source” low-cost low-tech health 1600+ Twitter
ideas January 2009 Followers, “trust
grade” of 98/100
Cited in the July 2009
Economist Magazine
April 16, 2009
May 19

30+
Innovation Cell Publications
formed in 1st Health Camp in
January 2009 August 2009 Canada
with IBM
Ranked among top 10 September 2009
websites for “health
innovation” in the world
myhealthinnovation launched - 1st website to
crowd-source” low-cost, low-tech healthcare
50+ Google Scholar
innovations
Citations September
February 2009
2009
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 Knowledge Transfer
Develop new methods to analyze health trends rapidly

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 Knowledge Transfer
Develop new methods to analyze health trends rapidly

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 2. E-Harmony

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 E-harmony = happiness

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 E-harmony means…

ƒ Listening
ƒ Trust
ƒ Empathy

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 How to Listen
“Crowd-source” low-cost, low-tech healthcare innovations

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 What are Patients talking about?
Focus Rank in Chronic Disease Communities

Depression 1
Bipolar Illness 2
Cancer 3
Autism 4
Diabetes 5
Obesity 6
Chronic Fatigue 7
Chronic Pain 8
OCD 9
Alcohol Dependency 10

Source: Adapted from, Seeman N, Electronic Healthcare, 2008

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 Trusted? It’s time to move on.

“Be careful about reading health books.

You may die of a misprint.”
- Mark Twain

See: Deshpande, A., and Jadad, A.R., The Journal of Rheumatology 2009; 36:1

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 Privacy?

It’s about control over your data.

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 Biased data?

“All data are crappy; the

differences are a matter of degree…”

“…Work hard on your instruments. Then work

hard on your data analysis.”

- Timothy M. Brown, National Center for Atmospheric Research

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 Source: Born, K, Rizo, C. and Seeman N, “Participatory Storytelling Online: A Complementary Model of Patient Satisfaction.”
Electronic Healthcare, Sep. 2009
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