It has been suggested that portions of Health advocacy (about advocacy for individual patients) be split from it and merged into this article. (Discuss) (October 2017) |
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Patient advocacy is a process in health care concerned with advocacy for patients, survivors, and caregivers. The patient advocate [1] may be an individual or an organization, concerned with healthcare standards or with one specific group of disorders. The terms patient advocate and patient advocacy can refer both to individual advocates providing services that organizations also provide, and to organizations whose functions extend to individual patients. Some patient advocates are independent (with no conflict-of-loyalty issues) and some work for the organizations that are directly responsible for the patient's care.
Typical advocacy activities are the following: safeguarding patients from errors, incompetence and misconduct; patient rights, matters of privacy, confidentiality or informed consent, patient representation, awareness-building, support and education of patients, survivors and their carers. [2]
Patient advocates give a voice to patients, survivors and their carers on healthcare-related (public) fora, informing the public, the political and regulatory world, health care providers (hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies etc.), organizations of health care professionals, the educational world, and the medical and pharmaceutical research communities.
Nurses can perform a de facto role of patient advocacy, though this role may be limited due their position in an organization. [2] Patients can advocate for themselves through self-advocacy and the ability for this self-advocacy can be learnt or improved through training. [3]
Patient advocacy, as a hospital-based practice, grew out of this patient rights movement: patient advocates (often called patient representatives) were needed to protect and enhance the rights of patients at a time when hospital stays were long and acute conditions—heart disease, stroke and cancer—contributed to the boom in hospital growth. Health care reformers at the time critiqued this growth by quoting Roemer's law: a built hospital bed is a bed likely to be filled. [4] And more radical health analysts coined the term health empires [5] to refer to the increasing power of these large teaching institutions that linked hospital care with medical education, putting one in the service of the other, arguably losing the patient-centered focus in the process. It was not surprising, then, that patient advocacy, like patient care, focused on the hospital stay, while health advocacy took a more critical perspective of a health care system in which power was concentrated on the top in large medical teaching centers and a dominance of the medical profession. [6] [7]
Patient advocacy in the United States emerged in the 1950s in the context of cancer research and treatment. [8] In those early days of cancer treatment, patients and their families raised ethical concerns around the tests, treatment practices, and clinical research being conducted. For instance, they expressed concern to the National Institute of Health (NIH) about the cruelty of the repeated collection of blood samples (for blood marrow examination) and raised questions about whether this was more harmful than beneficial to the patient. [8] Sidney Farber, a Harvard physician and cancer researcher, coined the term total care, to describe the treatment of children with leukemia. [9] Under total care, a physician "treated the family as a whole, factoring in its psychosocial and economic needs", rather than focusing purely on physical health concerns. [9] Previous researchers had dealt with concerns raised by families, because physicians emphasized patient physical health rather than the inclusion of bedside manners with the families. The practice of patient advocacy emerged to support and represent patients in this medico-legal and ethical discussion.
The 1970s were also an important time in the US for patient advocacy as the Patient Rights movement grew. As a major advocacy organization during the time, the National Welfare Rights Organization's (NWRO) materials for a patient's bill of rights influenced many additional organizations and writings, including hospital accreditation standards for the Joint Commission in 1970 and the American Hospital Association's Patient Bill of Rights in 1972. [10] [11] The utilization of advocates by individual patients gained momentum in the early 2000s in the US, and Australia 10 years later, and the profession is now perceived as a mainstream option to optimize outcomes in both hospital- and community-based healthcare.
Communication skills, information-seeking skills and problem-solving skills were found to correlate with measures of a patient's ability to advocate for themselves. [3] : 51 Conceptualizations of the qualities have defined self-knowledge, communication skills, knowledge of rights, and leadership as components of advocacy. [3] : 50
A number of interventions have been tried to improve patients' effectiveness at advocating for themselves. Studies have found peer-led programs where an individual with a condition is taught interview skills were effective in improving self-advocacy. Writing interventions, where people with conditions received training and practiced writing essays advocating for themselves, were shown to improve self-advocacy. [3] : 52
At a conceptual level patient advocacy consists of three processes: valuing, apprising and interceding. Valuing consists of understanding the patient's unique attributes and desires. [12] : 35 Apprising consists of informing the patient and advising the patient. [12] : 36 Interceding consists of interacting with processes to ensure that the patient's unique attributes and desires are represented in these processes, [12] : 36 and may include interceding in family interactions as well as healthcare processes. [12] : 36
Examples of patient advocacy include:
The American Nurses Association (ANA) includes advocacy in its definition of nursing:
Nursing is the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, facilitation of healing, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, groups, communities, and populations. [19] [20] [21]
Advocacy in nursing finds its theoretical basis in nursing ethics. For instance, the ANA's Code of Ethics for Nurses includes language relating to patient advocacy: [22]
Several factors can lead a patient to use nurses for advocacy, including impairments in their ability to express wishes such as die to speech impairments or limited consciousness, lack of independence due to illiteracy, sociocultural weakness, or separation from friends or family caused by hospitalization. Nurses are more able to advocate if they are independent, professionally committed, and have self-confidence as well as having legal and professional knowledge, as well as knowing a patient's wishes. The act of patient advocacy improved nurses' sense of professional well-being and self-concept, job motivation and job satisfaction, and enhances the public image of nurses; however, advocating for a patient could have social and professional consequences. [2] : 146
Conflict of interests between a nurse's perceived professional responsibilities and their responsibilities to the patient can be a barrier to advocacy. [23] : 174 Additionally, a nurse is concerned about all of the patients they care for rather any individual patient. [24] : 190 Gadow and Curtis argue that the role of patient advocacy in nursing is to facilitate a patient's informed consent through decision-making, but in mental health nursing there is a conflict between the patient's right to autonomy and nurses' legal and professional duty to protect the patient and the community from harm, since patients may experience delusions or confusion which affect their decision-making. In such instances, the nurse may engage in persuasion and negotiation in order to prevent the risk that they perceive. [24] : 192
Private advocates (also known as independent patient/health/health care advocates) often work alongside the advocates that work for hospitals. As global healthcare systems started to become more complex, and as the role of the cost of care continues to place more of a burden on patients, a new profession of private professional advocacy began to take root in the mid-2000s. At that time, two organizations were founded to support the work of these new private practitioners, professional patient advocates. [25] The National Association of Healthcare Advocacy Consultants was started to provide broad support for advocacy. [26] The Alliance of Professional Health Advocates was started to support the business of being a private advocate. [27] Some regions require that those detained for the treatment of mental health disorders are given access to independent mental health advocates who are not involved in the patient's treatment. [28] [29] : 20
Proponents of private advocacy, such as Australian advocate Dorothy Kamaker and L. Bradley Schwartz, have noted that the patient advocates employed by healthcare facilities have an inherent conflict of interest in situations where the needs of an individual patient are at odds with the business interests of an advocate's employer. Kamaker argues that hiring a private advocate eliminates this conflict because the private advocate "…has only one master and very clear priorities." [30]
Kamaker founded patientadvocates.com.au in 2013 and followed with disabilityhealthsupport.com.au in 2021 when research revealed that vulnerable groups achieved sub-optimal outcomes and encountered barriers and prejudice in the mainstream health and hospital systems in Australia. "Based on the limited data available, we know that the overall health of people with disabilities is much worse than that of the general population", with "people with disabilities rarely identified as a priority population group in public health policy and practice". [31] Patients supported by advocates have been shown to experience fewer treatment errors and require fewer readmissions post discharge. In Australia there has been some movement by private health insurers to engage private patient advocates to reduce costs, improve outcomes and expedite return to work for employees.
Schwartz is the founder and president of GNANOW.org, where he states, "Everyone employed by a health care company is limited to what they can accomplish for patients and families. Hospital-employed patient advocates, navigators, social workers, and discharge planners are no different. They became health care professionals because they are passionate about helping people. But they have heavy caseloads and many work long hours with limited resources. Independent Patient Advocates work one-on-one with patients and loved ones to explore options, improve communication, and coordinate with overworked hospital staff. In fact, many Independent Patient Advocates used to work for hospitals and health care companies before they decided to work directly for patients." [32]
Patient advocacy organizations, PAO, or patient advocacy groups [33] are organizations that exist to represent the interests of people with a particular disease. Patient advocacy organizations may fund research and influence national health policy through lobbying. [34] : 5 Examples in the US include the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and National Organization for Rare Disorders. [35] : 345
Some patient advocacy groups receive donations from pharmaceutical companies. In the US in 2015, 14 companies donated $116 million to patient advocacy groups. A database identifying more than 1,200 patient groups showed that six pharmaceutical companies contributed $1 million or more in 2015 to individual groups representing patients who use their drugs, and 594 groups in the database received donations from pharmaceutical companies. Fifteen patient groups relied on pharmaceutical companies for at least 20 percent of their revenue in the same year, and some received more than half of their revenue from pharmaceutical companies. Recipients of donations from pharmaceutical companies include the American Diabetes Association, Susan G. Komen, and the Caring Ambassadors Program. [36]
Patient opinion leaders, also sometimes called patient advocates, are individuals who are well versed in a disease, either as patients themselves or as caretakers, and share their knowledge on the particular disease with others. Such POLs can have an influence on health care providers and may help persuade them to use evidence-based therapies or medications in the management of other patients. Identifying such people and persuading them is one goal of market access groups at pharmaceutical and medical device companies. [37]
Founded in 2000, [47] the interprofessional Center for Patient Partnerships (CPP) at University of Wisconsin–Madison offers a health advocacy certificate with a focus on either patient advocacy or system-level health policy advocacy. [48] The chapter "Educating for Health Advocacy in Settings of Higher Education" in Patient Advocacy for Health Care Quality: Strategies for Achieving Patient-Centered Care describes CPP's pedagogy and curriculum. [49]
In the United States, state governmental units have established ombudsmen to investigate and respond to patient complaints and to provide other consumer services.
Such state government offices may also be responsible for intervening in disputes within the legal and insurance systems and in disciplinary actions against health care professionals. Some hospitals, health insurance companies, and other health care organizations also employ people specifically to assume the role of patient advocate. Within hospitals, the person may have the title of ombudsman or patient representative.[ citation needed ]
An advance healthcare directive, also known as living will, personal directive, advance directive, medical directive or advance decision, is a legal document in which a person specifies what actions should be taken for their health if they are no longer able to make decisions for themselves because of illness or incapacity. In the U.S. it has a legal status in itself, whereas in some countries it is legally persuasive without being a legal document.
Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals and allied health fields. Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, midwifery, nursing, optometry, audiology, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, athletic training, and other health professions all constitute health care. The term includes work done in providing primary care, secondary care, tertiary care, and public health.
Palliative care is an interdisciplinary medical caregiving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses. Within the published literature, many definitions of palliative care exist. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes palliative care as "an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain, illnesses including other problems whether physical, psychosocial, and spiritual". In the past, palliative care was a disease specific approach, but today the WHO takes a broader patient-centered approach that suggests that the principles of palliative care should be applied as early as possible to any chronic and ultimately fatal illness. This shift was important because if a disease-oriented approach is followed, the needs and preferences of the patient are not fully met and aspects of care, such as pain, quality of life, and social support, as well as spiritual and emotional needs, fail to be addressed. Rather, a patient-centered model prioritizes relief of suffering and tailors care to increase the quality of life for terminally ill patients.
The healthcare industry is an aggregation and integration of sectors within the economic system that provides goods and services to treat patients with curative, preventive, rehabilitative, and palliative care. It encompasses the creation and commercialization of products and services conducive to the preservation and restoration of well-being. The contemporary healthcare sector comprises three fundamental facets, namely services, products, and finance. It can be further subdivided into numerous sectors and categories and relies on interdisciplinary teams of highly skilled professionals and paraprofessionals to address the healthcare requirements of both individuals and communities.
Telenursing refers to the use of information technology in the provision of nursing services whenever physical distance exists between patient and nurse, or between any number of nurses. As a field, it is part of telemedicine, and has many points of contacts with other medical and non-medical applications, such as telediagnosis, teleconsultation, and telemonitoring. The field, however, is still being developed as the information on telenursing isn't comprehensive enough.
Psychiatric nursing or mental health nursing is the appointed position of a nurse that specialises in mental health, and cares for people of all ages experiencing mental illnesses or distress. These include: neurodevelopmental disorders, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, mood disorders, addiction, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, psychosis, paranoia, and self-harm.
A public hospital, or government hospital, is a hospital which is government owned and is fully funded by the government and operates solely off the money that is collected from taxpayers to fund healthcare initiatives. In almost all the developed countries but the United States of America, and in most of the developing countries, this type of hospital provides medical care free of charge to patients, covering expenses and wages by government reimbursement.
A health professional, healthcare professional, or healthcare worker is a provider of health care treatment and advice based on formal training and experience. The field includes those who work as a nurse, physician, physician assistant, registered dietitian, veterinarian, veterinary technician, optometrist, pharmacist, pharmacy technician, medical assistant, physical therapist, occupational therapist, dentist, midwife, psychologist, audiologist, or healthcare scientist, or who perform services in allied health professions. Experts in public health and community health are also health professionals.
Case management is a managed care technique within the health care coverage system of the United States. It involves an integrated system that manages the delivery of comprehensive healthcare services for enrolled patients. Case managers are employed in almost every aspect of health care and these employ different approaches in the control of clinical actions.
Health advocacy or health activism encompasses direct service to the individual or family as well as activities that promote health and access to health care in communities and the larger public. Advocates support and promote the rights of the patient in the health care arena, help build capacity to improve community health and enhance health policy initiatives focused on available, safe and quality care. Health advocates are best suited to address the challenge of patient-centered care in our complex healthcare system. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) defines patient-centered care as: Health care that establishes a partnership among practitioners, patients, and their families to ensure that decisions respect patients' wants, needs, and preferences and that patients have the education and support they need to make decisions and participate in their own care. Patient-centered care is also one of the overreaching goals of health advocacy, in addition to safer medical systems, and greater patient involvement in healthcare delivery and design.
The healthcare delivery system of Pakistan is complex because it includes healthcare subsystems by federal governments and provincial governments competing with formal and informal private sector healthcare systems. Healthcare is delivered mainly through vertically managed disease-specific mechanisms. The different institutions that are responsible for this include: provincial and district health departments, parastatal organizations, social security institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private sector. The country's health sector is also marked by urban-rural disparities in healthcare delivery and an imbalance in the health workforce, with insufficient health managers, nurses, paramedics and skilled birth attendants in the peripheral areas. Pakistan's gross national income per capita in 2021 was $4,990 and the total expenditure on health per capita in 2021 was Rs 657.2 Billion, constituting 1.4% of the country's GDP. The health care delivery system in Pakistan consists of public and private sectors. Under the constitution, health is primarily responsibility of the provincial government, except in the federally administered areas. Health care delivery has traditionally been jointly administered by the federal and provincial governments with districts mainly responsible for implementation. Service delivery is being organized through preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative services. The curative and rehabilitative services are being provided mainly at the secondary and tertiary care facilities. Preventive and promotive services, on the other hand, are mainly provided through various national programs; and community health workers’ interfacing with the communities through primary healthcare facilities and outreach activities. The state provides healthcare through a three-tiered healthcare delivery system and a range of public health interventions. Some government/ semi government organizations like the armed forces, Sui Gas, WAPDA, Railways, Fauji Foundation, Employees Social Security Institution and NUST provide health service to their employees and their dependants through their own system, however, these collectively cover about 10% of the population. The private health sector constitutes a diverse group of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, traditional healers, drug vendors, as well as laboratory technicians, shopkeepers and unqualified practitioners.
Health policy can be defined as the "decisions, plans, and actions that are undertaken to achieve specific healthcare goals within a society". According to the World Health Organization, an explicit health policy can achieve several things: it defines a vision for the future; it outlines priorities and the expected roles of different groups; and it builds consensus and informs people.
The philosophy of healthcare is the study of the ethics, processes, and people which constitute the maintenance of health for human beings. For the most part, however, the philosophy of healthcare is best approached as an indelible component of human social structures. That is, the societal institution of healthcare can be seen as a necessary phenomenon of human civilization whereby an individual continually seeks to improve, mend, and alter the overall nature and quality of their life. This perennial concern is especially prominent in modern political liberalism, wherein health has been understood as the foundational good necessary for public life.
Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alleviation of suffering through compassionate presence". Nurses practice in many specialties with varying levels of certification and responsibility. Nurses comprise the largest component of most healthcare environments. Shortages of qualified nurses are found in many countries.
Healthcare in Senegal is a center topic of discourse in understanding the well-being and vitality of the Senegalese people. As of 2008, there was a need to improve Senegal's infrastructure to promote a healthy, decent living environment for the Senegalese.
Healthcare in the United States is largely provided by private sector healthcare facilities, and paid for by a combination of public programs, private insurance, and out-of-pocket payments. The U.S. is the only developed country without a system of universal healthcare, and a significant proportion of its population lacks health insurance. The United States spends more on healthcare than any other country, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP; however, this expenditure does not necessarily translate into better overall health outcomes compared to other developed nations. Coverage varies widely across the population, with certain groups, such as the elderly and low-income individuals, receiving more comprehensive care through government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.
Unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP) are paraprofessionals who assist individuals with physical disabilities, mental impairments, and other health care needs with their activities of daily living (ADLs). UAPs also provide bedside care—including basic nursing procedures—all under the supervision of a registered nurse, licensed practical nurse or other health care professional. UAPs must demonstrate their ability and competence before gaining any expanded responsibilities in a clinical setting. While providing this care, UAPs offer compassion and patience and are part of the patient's healthcare support system. Communication between UAPs and registered nurses (RNs) is key as they are working together in their patients' best interests. The scope of care UAPs are responsible for is delegated by RNs or other clinical licensed professionals.
Holistic nursing is a way of treating and taking care of the patient as a whole body, which involves physical, social, environmental, psychological, cultural and religious factors. There are many theories that support the importance of nurses approaching the patient holistically and education on this is there to support the goal of holistic nursing. The important skill to be used in holistic nursing would be communicating skills with patients and other practitioners. This emphasizes that patients being treated would be treated not only in their body but also their mind and spirit.. Holistic nursing is a nursing speciality concerning the integration of one's mind, body, and spirit with his or her environment. This speciality has a theoretical basis in a few grand nursing theories, most notably the science of unitary human beings, as published by Martha E. Rogers in An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing, and the mid-range theory Empowered Holistic Nursing Education, as published by Dr. Katie Love. Holistic nursing has gained recognition by the American Nurses Association (ANA) as a nursing specialty with a defined scope of practice and standards. Holistic nursing focuses on the mind, body, and spirit working together as a whole and how spiritual awareness in nursing can help heal illness. Holistic medicine focuses on maintaining optimum well-being and preventing rather than just treating disease.
Genetics nursing is a nursing specialty that focuses on providing genetic healthcare to patients.
Correctional nursing or forensic nursing is nursing as it relates to prisoners. Nurses are required in prisons, jails, and detention centers; their job is to provide physical and mental healthcare for detainees and inmates. In these correctional settings, nurses are the primary healthcare providers. These nurses also work with crime victims and assist in expert witness testimonies, and are involved in a variety of legal cases, including paternity disputes and workplace injuries.