I have been working with healthcare providers for over 20 years and, fortunately, I haven’t had to view care from the patient’s perspective very often. We all talk about the importance of engaging patients, improving communication and patient safety but all of those terms become increasing more important, and more personal, when it is you […]
When we talk about patient and family engagement, it’s tough not to consider the barriers. Problems with health literacy, for example, may hinder patients’ understanding of diagnoses, medication regimens, and care plans. Fear of being considered “difficult” may prevent patients from speaking up. Providers may not have to tools, training, or time to actively engage […]
Every patient is different. And, so it seems, is every definition of patient engagement. No real revelation there. But it does expose a foundational imperative — where does patient engagement start? The easy answer, of course, is with the patient. But reality shows us that it often starts with caregivers and health care administrators who […]
As a patient advocate for more than a decade, I felt exhilarated when I first read, Safety is Personal, the Report on Consumer Engagement in Patient Safety published by the National Patient Safety Foundation’s Lucian Leape Institute. It gets to the point quickly with its call to action: Engage patients and families as partners. While […]
I have a confession to make – I am a healthcare cynic. I have come to believe that patients and families are rarely treated with compassion and respect, that information can be very hard to come by in the hospital setting, and that clinicians have little time or inclination to sit, talk, and answer questions. […]
The idea of patient-centered care resonates well with me, and other nurses who have long valued the central role of patients and families in the delivery of care. Some of my most memorable pediatric patients had miraculous recoveries, and the one aspect that all of these patients had in common was an engaging family support […]
This week, I was once again reminded of the prevalence and impact of low health literacy. An article on WashingtonPost.com penned by CVS Caremark pointed to these statistics from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that looked at the elder segment of the population, age 65 and older: 2/3 of older people are unable to […]
As IT professionals prepare to convene for the Health Information and Management Systems Society’s (HIMSS) annual conference and exhibitiion February 23-27 and the topic of patient engagement takes center stage, guest blogger Jim Rattray offers his thoughts on effective engagement. Hardwire. Analytics. Evidence. Patterns. Models of care. These terms all mean something to health care […]
As the leading provider of informed consent and other care communication solutions, Standard Register Healthcare is highly focused on the ubiquitous trend of patient engagement. It is our core belief that by helping our customers empower people with information, we can improve people’s health and the healthcare system. To that end, informed consent is a […]
This is the third in a series of guest blog posts, spotlighting how hospitals are engaging their patients to transform care delivery, using the Patient and Family Centered Care Methodology and Practice. The Minimally Invasive Bariatric and General Surgery team at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC, performs over 1000 procedures annually. By adopting the six-step, […]