Entering the chat room, the user immediately joins a community of people with the same condition. Discussions can become very specific - patients may discuss the specific type of graft used in their particular surgery and debate among themselves which one they would recommend to other patients with similar disorders joining the chat room. Since the patient can just as easily be misinformed as enlightened, physicians need to learn how to more specifically inform their patients. Healthcare consumers are getting more control of the knowledge they have which enables them to make decisions with their doctor about diagnosis, procedures and treatment. Healthcare consumers want partnership.
Patients receive expert advice anytime requested regardless of their geographic location.
They interactively communicate with a diabetes specialist who also maintains communication with the patient's primary care physician. Jim Clark was brought up in Plainview, Texas. His father had left home and his mother was too poor to realize that she could qualify for welfare. There, an aptitude test showed a remarkable ability for mathematics. One of his instructors recognized his talent and encouraged him to enroll in college.