Premerus Misdiagnosis Site

One update regarding my post last week about the above. Thanks to my intrepid friend, patient advocate and better researcher than I, Trish Torrey, turns out that Premerus has a business model based on people using its network of radiologists to read their studies. So what looked like a transparent, good deed on their part is actually a brand and business extension. No judgment here as to whether it is right or wrong. It might even be a smart move. Just one more thing for the consumer to be aware of if nothing else.

Misdiagnosis nightmare - check this out.

Premerus, a Nashville based company has launched a Web portal -www.yourmisdiagnosis.com - as a way to help patients and their families address the impact of medical misdiagnosis. The company hopes visitors to the site will post their own experiences as a way of sharing insights about the impact of diagnostic errors on themselves, their families and the public. Of course having just launched there is not much there but the fact that this has received press indicates that this will be just another in a growing litany of sources for patient education. There are lessons to learn. For example the first post tells a story of a woman whose cancer supposedly spread to her lungs but didn’t. A radiologist specializing in oncology would have spotted the mistake on a scan; a general radiologist did not. So that gives you further questions to ask when you face similar situation. Don’t take anything at face value. In this case good news that it was misdiagnosed but it left emotional and financial scars. The good news for hospitals it appears is that names are not named. However a smart hospital would be wise to track this site and pick up trends that can be further addressed in their patient education efforts. And smart consumers should balance what is said here and weigh it against the myriad of other information they are bombarded with on a daily basis. Transparency is here to stay. What do you think?

Patient Advocates

Here is a good article covering the emerging field of patient advocates, worth the read. A friend and colleague, Trish Torrey is an advocate and expert on this topic at about.com.