Providing patients and family caregivers with understandable health information might seem like common sense, but it’s not as common as you might think – and its impact on care has big implications when it comes to health outcomes and the cost of healthcare. The Institute of Medicine defines health literacy as “the degree to which […]
What do health literacy, health communication, shared decision-making, patient education and patient engagement have in common? They all focus on the individual patient being an essential part of the healthcare system, which is a step in the right direction, given the paternalistic past of healthcare. Too often, these fields are seen as distinct efforts, each […]
The patient safety movement and efforts to honor patients’ preferences emphasize the importance of skillful communication on the part of physicians and other clinicians. Less attention has been paid to the effect of patients’ communication skills. In addition to catching errors, patients can use effective communication skills to improve their health and the medical services […]
Although I am not crazy about it, Ned goes everywhere I go. You know Ned, “no evidence of disease” – that Ned. Funny, my husband sort of likes him. Ned lulls him into thinking everything is all right even though all three of us know it is not true. That is the way it often […]
It is with great joy I heard the OpenNotes Collaborative was named institutional winner of the John Q. Sherman Award for Excellence in Patient Engagement, at the NPSF Patient Safety Congress in May, 2014. In our 24 by 7 ecosystem, we often miss the ability to prioritize the connection between people, the real connections that […]
The bedside shift-to-shift nursing report isn’t new. It has been discussed as an effective patient engagement tool for at least 35 years. The Joint Commission identified communication failures during shift reports as a leading cause of sentinel events in the United States, and, in 2011, the National Patient Safety Foundation focused on the bedside report […]
The words, “patient engagement” and “patient safety” seem like common sense in healthcare. However, if you are a professional caring for patients today you can certainly identify with Eliza Doolittle’s lament in My Fair Lady. “Words, words, words! I’m so sick of words I get words all day through First from him, now from you […]
Cleveland Clinic wants its patients involved — fully involved. It starts with opening access to services, functions and information that previously had been hidden or hard to get to. Cleveland Clinic’s MyChart personal health record is at the heart of the initiative, which has been ongoing for more than a year. The system sees […]