Patients Posting as Guest Authors

Your team is required to recruit one or two patients who have something to say about your topic and the reforms your team is proposing. Your blog may include one or two patient posts.

In general patients should write about their experience with your topic area, and tell what they like and dislike about the health care they have received.

Try to find patients who have some experience with your team's topic. The patient perspective may be different. If the topic is financing, the patient may talk about insurance forms, prior authorizations, coverage, copayments, elgibility for insurance, deductibles, or many other related topics rather than the perspectives reflected in the team's finance proposals.

Add the patient as an author on your team's blog; be sure to tell them they are limited to authoring one post, but they are encouraged to post comments on any of the other posts on your team blog. Some patients may not have email; you can help them get gmail, hotmail, or other free email accounts and then add them to the blog as an author. An alternative is to have the person legibly print or write their post, then you type it as a post generally describing the author.

PLEASE ENCOURAGE PATIENTS TO PROTECT THEIR PRIVACY BY USING AN ALIAS LIKE "JANE (OR JOHN) PATIENT" INSTEAD OF THEIR REAL NAME. DISCOURAGE PATIENTS FROM USING THE NAMES OF SPECIFIC HEALTH CARE ORGANIZATIONS OR HEALTH CARE WORKERS.