Category: Patient Advocacy

Posted in #BCCEU, #HCSM, Patient Advocacy

How Blogs Provide a New Framework for Examining QOL of Younger Breast Cancer Survivors

Posted on by Editor

This is my abstract for the Medicine 2.0 Conference.

Background: The statistics of increased length of survival for women diagnosed with breast cancer give no indication of the quality of life (QOL) experienced. In describing the psychosocial adjustment of life after cancer treatment, younger women in particular convey a unique sense of loneliness, termed survivor loneliness. They report more unmet needs, experience greater emotional distress and a greater search for meaning in their lives. Many are turning to blogs to find a sense of connection and a means of self construct. These blog narratives can provide researchers with a new framework for enhanced understanding of the lived experience of cancer survivorship.

See on www.medicine20congress.com

Posted in Patient Advocacy

Patients As Partners or Patients As Tokens?

Posted on by Editor

It has been fascinating to watch a discussion take place on social media centering on the pertinent issue of whether patient engagement is a concept which is truly being embraced or is mere tokenism.

The debate started with the announcement of a Canadian Patient Experience Summit:

Connect with other healthcare leaders at the NATIONAL FORUM ON PATIENT EXPERIENCE and help shape the future of patient centred care in Canada.

This unprecedented event provides the perfect platform for exchanging ideas and sharing solutions. The conference is dedicated to addressing the central issues and successful strategies for implementing patient centred care.

However, one vital ingredient from the conference appears to be missing:

The Patient!

Colleen Young asks the obvious question of the organizers: ” Do you know about the patient motto “nothing for us without us”. More and more health conferences (med2.0, medX, Doctors2.0) are including patients by setting up special funds to allow them to participate. How can one develop, and indeed implement, truly patient-focused initiatives without patients?”

Other commentators quickly added their voices to the discussion and while the patient advocate in me nodded in agreement,  the PR professional in me started to see a PR disaster unfold in real-time online.

You’re probably familiar with the work of Lucien Engelen, who recently declared he would boycott any healthcare conference that didn’t include patients, and who asked other healthcare leaders to join him. I think this is a fantastic opportunity for your organization to show real leadership. While the backlash against conferences that exclude patients has been fierce, the reverse is also true … conferences that embrace patient involvement enjoy great support from a very passionate, vocal and big community!

So a potential PR disaster could still be turned around!

However…

Carolyn Thomas expressed her concern that doing so at this stage will just reinforce the tokenism aspect of including patients

Call me cynical, but in fact I now wonder if our little tempest in a teapot here is going to attract the attention of some PR types at SI who will, as so often happens in industry, decide to co-opt patient engagement by deliberating getting onboard the bandwagon in order to earn the “Patients Included” badge (which until now they’ve never even heard of!) since we have kindly brought it to their attention.

I am really interested to see how this will be addressed by the conference organizers. It demonstrates once more the rise of the patient voice – a voice that will not tolerate tokenism – and serves as a warning to all those who jump on the patient engagement bandwagon without a true commitment to its principles.

Posted in #HCSM, Patient Advocacy

Two reasons to make patient engagement a priority

Posted on by Editor

Patient engagement should be a priority not just from a clinical perspective but from a cost perspective too. 

Patients who are engaged in their own healthcare not only have better clinical outcomes but have also lower costs of healthcare, according to new studies published in HealthAffairs.

By analyzing more than 30,000 patients, researchers at Fairview Health Services, a Minnesota health system, found that patients who were “least activated” — less involved in managing their health — had 8 percent higher costs than those who were actively engaged. While average costs were 8 percent higher in the first year, that figure shot up to 21 percent in the second year.

A separate study also found that patients who received help from their providers such that they could share in decision making saw 12.5 percent fewer hospital admissions and lower healthcare costs.

See on medcitynews.com