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Patient Engagement as Holy Grail of Health Care
This is the first article I've read that makes a connection between a patient being distrustful of medical professionals and that patient being more healthy. I see a lot of myself and all of you in this distrustful patient archetype. Long live pain in the a*s patients -- literally:
For health care professionals, patient engagement is the holy grail of health care. It is the key to patient adherence – a prerequisite to achieving better outcomes, fewer ER visits and hospitalizations and more satisfied patients. It is easy to recognize an engaged patient – they do what their health care providers recommends …what their health care team knows what is right for them.
But doesn’t engagement depend upon your perspective?
In a earlier life I spent a lot of time looking at health behavior. Among the many things I learned were the following:
• We all define health within the context of our own lives and in our own way
• We all are satisfied with different levels of healthAdmittedly there are patterns of health behavior or archetypes which can be used to segment health populations. One such archetype is characterized as 1) placing a high priority on achieving a high level of personal health, 2) being very proactive in terms of achieving and maintaining their above average health, and 3) having a moderate to high distrust of the medical professionals.
Not surprisingly, people who shared this pattern of health-related thinking demonstrated lower levels of physician visits, fewer hospital and ER visits, lower health care costs. They were also the healthiest when compared to all other patterns of health thinking and behavior. Because of their trust issues with their providers, these patients were “mavericks” doing their own thing when it came to staying healthy. In other words they were not very compliant and would be considered unengaged from the perspective of health care professionals as defined above.
People can be engaged in their own health and never see a doctor, visit a hospital, or take a prescription medication.
If you were to tell these independently healthy folks that they were “not engaged” in their own health they would likely scoff and say “what do you expect … the health care industry doesn’t take the time to understand the patient’s perspective.” In truth, aren’t people like this doing a better job than the health industry when it comes to “engagement” and staying healthy?
The point is that we as health care professionals need to start looking at things like the definition of health, health goals, compliance, and outcomes from the patient’s perspective. We need to incorporate the patient’s perspective into outcome and satisfaction measures. Only then do we have the right to “judge” whether a person (aka patient) is engaged, activated, or empowered. Once the health industry gets past this paternalistic, “we know better than you do” attitude then we can expect to see real change in health behavior and outcomes.
(from www.KevinMd.com)
Views: 577
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mike on
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irrespective of what the article says, do you think we've reached a tipping point in terms of patients becoming proactive? I think not, and i think we're far from it. But as the quality of the medical care we receive gets dumbed down by ever lower reimbursement rates for doctors/ health care providers, we'll be on our own. Unless the government removes the artificial barrier to competition that the prescription requirements amount to. If those are removed, Respironics and ResMed will be shit*ting in their pants as they get their as*ses handed to them by Samsung, LG and other consumer electronics providers who will be in business to meet patient needs instead of the needs of insurance companies, labs, doctors, hospitals and home health care companies.
Banyon said:The article did not say there was a trend to be proactive. It just made the distinctions and described the different outcomes.
RockRpsgt said:I don't believe that a pro-active trend is going on. I ask the same two questions of everyone I see. "What do you know about sleep?", And "Did anyone explain the process to you?". The resopnses overwhelmingly are "Nothin", and "Not a thing".
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Permalink Reply by RockRpsgt on
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I think that health awareness is on the rise.It's definately better than when I started all of this. I think alot of it depends on where you are. Some cities do things a little better than others. As far as reimbursement schedules is it going to get lowered? The physician group lobbies seem to be doing one hell of a job pushing it back. I believe they just got another reprieve that's good until July. Im sure their lawyers are already working on the next one. If they can push it back to pass the election we may never see them.
The prescriptions are not going away anytime soon.
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Permalink Reply by Mary Z on
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I think being proactive in your health care depends on your level of education (however earned) , money, and commitment. Just as an example (because I know this subject) a man goes to get his bp checked. It's very high. The doc puts him on medication. The meds make him impotent. For any of many reasons he doesn't go back to the doctor and ask for a different pill. His bp stays high and anything can happen. You have to be smart enough, insistent enough (to the point of finding doctors you can work with) , rich enough (or willing to budget and make sacrifices- my niche), and willing enough to jump through some hoops to take care of your health. The docs have to do their part too- such as an explanation of side effects of bp pills and there are alternative meds if this one doesn't work. I have a friend who would rather drive a big truck than take care of her teeth which are falling out. She doesn't care enough to see a dentist. Her values about health care only extend to things that hurt. If it doesn't hurt it doesn't get her attention. I have another friend, and I'm sure this is really common, who has COPD from smoking and isn't about to quit. Probably whatever gets the most press and has the best advertisements gets the most attention. I agree it depends a lot on demographics.
Oh, by the way, my friend who is losing her teeth did quit smoking and gained 130 lbs. She's now a stroke or heart attack waiting to happen. I think she has sleep apnea, too.
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Permalink Reply by 99 on
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patient engagement and empowerment is good providing they are informed and armed with correct and pertinent information and not disinformation propaganda
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I agree 99 (and welcome back). We've all seen a lot of misinformation and bad suggestions from the doctors office and the forum, too.
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