Our health is the only thing we really have and can not be left to others. Welcome to the era of participatory medicine.

Taking responsibility for one's own health is the first step in facilitating a better convalescence and recovery in case of illness. Your experience is the greatest contribution for you and others.

It can be a superexpert or an internet influencer, because what it publishes has quality and serves to put pressure on the networks. Another type of e-patient is one who has knowledge and helps others to better live their illness in the personal, work or family context. The two can also be (or not) activists.

The practice in medicine is changing from informed consent to informed choice, and this implies a shared decision making between doctor and patient about the choice of treatments. Patients can also help set research priorities.

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Do you want to become an e-patient?

- Get in depth: your doctor is an expert in medicine and you are an expert in you. Therefore, learn everything you can about your illness, prepare your visit by reviewing your history, take notes, ask questions, get copies of your doctor's but do not demand treatments. Propose it and talk to him. The good expert does not oppose a second opinion.

- What you can ask your hospital: your own medical history and all data related to patient safety, such as the rate of hospital infections and those in the quality indicators of the ISO standard, such as the number of readmissions.

- Centered on patients? You can request if informed consent has been validated by patients, if there are listening tools for patients and what they are, if what is said is implemented and in what projects, if the degree of involvement of professionals and working conditions allow them be a "patient-centered" hospital, and whether patient committees work or are decorative.

- Costs and results: you can ask how much your treatment will cost and to what extent the results that have given you are conclusive.