The threat posed by COVID-19 has upended daily life all over the globe. The switch from pre-COVID normal to COVID abnormal was jarring, but as time goes on, some of those changes will persist as the new normal. Telemedicine, for example, was a long time coming, became outpatient medicine’s new ballgame practically overnight, and now […]
Exiled in a basement reading room, radiologists work alone intently, silently at computer screens that provide the only source of light – this stereotype casts radiology as one of the least person/patient-centered medical specialties. Although there is an element of truth in that stereotype, the radiology community is working to evolve into a patient-centered practice. […]
I’ve had an opportunity recently (here and here) to write about patient safety in the context of care for transgender patients. Thinking about issues related to providing them with safe and effective care leads back to the basics of patient-centered care. Patient centeredness is hardly a new concept, but thinking about it through the eyes […]
“Patient-centered care” was a term coined in the 1980s as a professional response to increasingly vocal patients’ demands for genuine empowerment. Three decades later, patient-centeredness is still necessary, but powerful economic, technological and social forces are bringing about new relationships in healthcare that patient-centeredness fails to adequately encompass. In a recent issue of the BMJ, […]
Editor’s Note: This week, Engaging Patients revisits a post by Jan Oldenburg, editor of Participatory Healthcare: A Person-Centered Approach to Healthcare Transformation. Jan interviewed 27 patients and caregivers whose stories are featured in the book. In this post, she highlights themes that emerged from the interviews and reflects on the central role patient stories can play […]
Editor’s Note: Congratulations to the Client & Family Centered Care Simulation Development Team at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, one of two winners of this year’s Sherman Award for Excellence in Patient Engagement. They received the award at the National Patient Safety Foundation’s Patient Safety Congress in May 2017. The Sherman Award is co-sponsored […]
Her usual doctor was out of town when Beth felt a lump on her right breast and under her arm. As she sat in the doctor’s office listening to a new nurse practitioner explain why she didn’t think an imaging test was necessary, Beth knew something was wrong. People in the medical profession—really anybody—can see […]
Editor’s Note: This week, we reached into our archive to bring you this “Encore Performance” from Michael Millenson who speaks candidly about the assumptions we make about people “different from us” and their implications for meaningful patient engagement and activation. A few years ago, I was upgraded to First Class on a flight from […]
I recently interviewed a great many patients and caregivers as a part of research for the book, Participatory Healthcare: A Person-Centered Approach to Healthcare Transformation, published in August by CRC press. Through the process of interviewing the 27 individuals whose stories are represented in the book, I grew to appreciate how important it is to […]
Since October is Health Literacy Month, this is a good time to look at how addressing health literacy can help healthcare organizations advance patient engagement. An individual’s “health literacy” refers to their capacity to find and use information and services to take care of their health.[1] A “health literate healthcare organization” refers to an organization […]