Wikipedia describes e-Patients, or Internet-savvy patients as being "empowered, engaged, equipped, enabled" and I run into e-patients from time to time in my work as a social media manager for a Federally Qualified Health Center. Yet all too often, many of our patients are not empowered, and I've often pondered ways to help empower more of our patients.

As the health insurance marketplaces come online in October, many uninsured patients will have the opportunity to buy competitively priced quality health insurance plans. They will do this via the Internet, but will they become empowered, engaged, equipped and enabled? This is one of the many questions out there about the Affordable Care Act.

There are lots of important aspects about the Affordable Care Act that are set up to help empower patients. There are Patient Centered Medical Homes and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Will these help do the trick?

I suspect not. I suspect much more will be needed. While there is a lot of talk about getting young men who think they don't need health insurance, the young invincibles, to sign up, there are a lot of efforts by those opposed to President Obama to thwart these signup efforts. Beyond that, there is a lot of work being done to bring in the working poor, people who too often are not empowered in their daily lives.

When I think of e-patients, I tend to think of affluent, well educated white patients who are already empowered in other aspects of their lives who have then faced a medical emergency, often a chronic or terminal disease. Because of this have taken a much more active role in dealing with their health issues.

Will the newly insured take more active roles in their health? Will they learn about their conditions online and communicate with their medical providers via patient-portals? Or, willing they stick their insurance card in their purses and only take them out for emergencies?

I believe that as a nation, we will all be better off if the newly ensured are encouraged to become the next generation of e-patients. I am optimistic when I hear about enrollment efforts that go beyond simply getting someone to sign up for health insurance.

So, can we get the current generation of e-patients to take an active role in helping uninsured people get health insurance, and then become empowered in managing their own health? What can we do to help make this happen?