Electronic support group’s intervention will play the most impactful role in the American Society. The impact will be widely felt and the effect profound due to the factor of embracement of e-medical care and interactive systems. With the rise of consumer-driven medicalization, the electronic community is growing at high rates as far as the intervention practices are concerned. Traditional physicians’ role has been significantly changed from exclusive primary consultants as medical jurisdictions expand. Lay expertise has also as a result increased with the electronic grouping approach. As a principle source of information, the internet has changed the way healthcare and medical intervention is perceived in America (Barker 24).
The impact of the intervention of electronic sufferers groups is made more intense because the doctor-patient privacy is removed. In that regard, anyone with access to the internet will be able to reach out to peers and other ESG for information exchange. The impact will, therefore, be most profound considering how internet access has been prevalent today. It should also be remembered that it is very little or no control of the chat rooms, message platforms and media where the ESG exchange information. The application of lay expertise offers persons with the previously limited audience to share their knowledge with others. With time, the conditions that the ESG members share might gather enough momentum to lead to them seeking collective physician’s intervention. Admittedly, there will be unimaginable results from such actions.
One of the effects that might result from the impact is the medicalization of conditions and experiences. Such will then lead to a possible classification of experiences or shared symptomatic problems as diseases. There could also be a remote possibility of de-medicalization. All that can happen as evidence of the fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). The pain disorder is shrouded in controversy as from the time the internet bases suffers group Fibro Spot initiated the medicalization of the condition. So far, no categorical biomedical mechanism has been established to support the illness.
In that regard, we can see the impact of the electronic grouping of sufferers of shared experiences. The inference is that possible suspect conditions will also bring forth medical conflict. Such medical uncertainty will in turn cause the group members of such platforms to seek out the audience which seems to understand them best. Having an audience that best understands the ESG does not however, mean that the condition or human experiences will have solid medical concerns for medicalization.
On the other hand, experts do agree that the ESG will have a broad impact on empowering patients. The positive empowering will help to create an environment where the patients can identify and recognize possible problems in their health. In essence, such a context is very vital for early intervention where there are real or genuine health risks or problems for the patient. It also will help ease the work of the health community in spreading awareness and health campaigns to rare conditions (Brandt and Gardner 456)
The overall impact of the intervention of ESG will be changing the role of the patient in respect to medical and health concerns. Bio-medicalization will be increasingly driven by consumer demands and behavior. Also, there is going to be the desire and demand creation by consumerism push in a range of previous unperceived problems/conditions. There will, therefore, be the need for the medical experts to engage in deeper research to gain insights into the new circumstances. The government agencies involved in such concerns will also have to avail more funds to ensure there is adequate research facilitation of the same.
Works Cited
Barker, Kristin K. "Electronic support groups, patient-consumers, and medicalization: The case of contested illness." Journal of health and social behavior 49.1 (2008): 20-36.
Brandt, Allan M., and Martha Gardner. "Antagonism and accommodation: interpreting the relationship between public health and medicine in the United States during the 20th century." American journal of public health 90.5 (2000):
