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| What is Patient Empowerment - Recap by Lynn Nezin |
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| Written by Eugene Borukhovich |
| Saturday, 30 May 2009 02:57 |
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"The Health 2.0 NYC Chapter meetup group engaged in a lively wordstorm exercise at our last MeetUp session. The topic was patient empowerment, and the objective of the activity was to dimensionalize the phrase that has come to define the Health 2.0 movement. The representation of physicians, developers, marketers and entrepreneurs at our meeting was ideal for this exercise. Lynn Nezin, from White Space Healthcare Marketing, facilitated the wordstorming. We began by identifying emotions associated with typical medical office encounters. In general, people in the patient role experience discontent and anger at the wait time, discomfort with lack of information and knowledge, and distress at not being heard or appreciated. An aspirational view of the medical office encounter would be an environment in which people felt appreciated, involved and respected. The empowered patient would be informed, engaged, proactive, and responsible and would expect to find similar qualities in the healthcare provider. One of the most productive parts of the exercise involved re-naming the physician/patient relationship. The group felt that the term “patient” is associated with passivity, and reactivity, and is at odds with the vision of the Health 2.0 transactional landscape. One suggestion was patient-healthcare provider partnership, and this was attractive because it suggests a more equitable balance of power, and would be a departure from the more traditional, paternalistic dyad, in which patients tend to be relatively passive recipients of medical guidance, advice and dictums. A member of the group from the finance sector suggested re-naming patients as clients, the term used by bankers and lawyers, as well as many practitioners working in the mental health services. This resonated well with the group because a client’s personal time is valuable, and practitioners are dedicated to providing services that their clients deem valuable. It has the potential to help shift healthcare discussions out of the realm of didactic lecturing to more interactive problem-solving. We look forward to further refinements of the language of Health 2.0 as the group identifies concrete activities, projects, and business ventures that will help advance this movement." |
| Last Updated on Saturday, 30 May 2009 15:59 |
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