Patients' stories in their own voice

While at the AACH conference, I heard about a great resource for patients, health care providers and researchers, organized by the DIPEx research group at University of Oxford. The web sites http://www.healthtalkonline.org/ and http://www.youthhealthtalk.org provide patient interview videos and transcripts of patients talking about the many facets and implications of living with a particular disease. Diseases are indexed so that a new patient or a physician seeking to better understand the patient experiences can seek stories by topic. Researchers can access the material as well to gain a broader look at living with a particular illness.

Patient stories provide a unique perspective, especially to new patients, by providing technical information as well as insight into the emotional toll of an illness. And the volume of stories on these two web sites offers a dramatic look at human element of health and illness in a way that you just can't capture in text.