Chronic Illness Survivor?

The DMAA web site has an 'online bank' of individual patient testimonials about the virtues of care management. Including patient quotes and sometimes mentioning disease management companies by name, the stories take sterile statistics like reductions in inpatient admissions and blood glucose control and put real faces on them. The Disease Management Care Blog finds the anecdotes credible: get a good system of patient support in place, and it's amazing how well persons can do.

This made the Disease Management Care Blog want to open a separate page for reader testimonials. Something along the lines of.....

'After years of low awareness of disease management and forgoing daily updates offered through the internet, Mabel finally decided to subscribe to the DMCB, a great source of free info about population-based care management. Through regularly logging on, Mabel has become really smart, amazes her co-workers with her fund of knowledge, has helped her U.S. Senator better understand health reform, prompted a local hospital to close one wing from lack of business and has reduced the PMPM in her State by $0.03. 'This is so great,' said Mabel, 'I've forwarded the link to the rest of the folks in my Department!'

But seriously, if we're going to show how persons can get their quality of life back to normal, how about a variation of CBS' successful Survivor show? To qualify, persons would have to have a major chronic condition that is a) under control, thanks to b) having to take two or more medications on a daily basis and c) having to self-monitor/treat. The show would not only feature feats of stamina and guile, but how contestants manage the disease on a daily basis through of combination of as needed treatments, rest, nutritional adjustments and contact with a support team. The DMCB is thinking a 45 year old man with diabetes mellitus versus a 35 year old house wife on IV meds for rheumatoid arthritis versus a 55 year old office worker with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation......