Yesterday’s health report was a long time in the making. Our colleague Tom Ferguson, who coined the term e-patients, died in April 2006 while we were working on the draft of the online survey, but Gilles Frydman of ACOR.org and I completed it and gathered 1,680 responses to the 20+ essay questions. The telephone survey, crafted by Kristen Purcell of PSRAI, was more straightforward and the data set is now available so other researchers can have a look.

Although I often found it difficult to read the heartbreaking essays written by cancer patients and caregivers, it has been wonderful to see their stories bring the data to life, as in an Investor’s Business Daily story by Donna Howell and a Star-Ledger story by Kelly Heyboer.

If you really want to get into the topic of how the internet is changing health care, check out Fard Johnmar’s new show, The Digital Health Revolution (yes, I’m among the first guests). The show is hosted by ScribeMedia, producers of the very cool history of health care video shown at the recent Health 2.0 conference.