Question

1. Explain health care consumer empowerment. 2. Discuss the effects of health care consumer empowerment on health care outcomes. 3. What approaches can a professional nurse take to empower health care consumers?

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Answer 1

QUESTION : 1 . Explain health care consumer empowerment.

ANSWER : . The empowered consumer More demanding and discerning consumers are opening doors for new entrants in healthcare provision. Consumers are taking advantage of unprecedented access to information to become more diligent and informed about their health.It recognizes that while healthcare professionals are the experts in their knowledge of a disease, patients are the experts by experience. The empowerment process is about sharing both knowledge and experience to set new goals and learn with and from each other.

Today, organizational population health management strategies typically focus on improved care coordination, communication and analytics. But there is a growing emphasis on consumer empowerment and access to promote person-centered care. Many organizations are looking for tools to better engage and intervene with their consumers, as well as to get a more continuous picture of what’s happening with them.

The first move for many was to implement a patient portal. While a good step forward, patient portals are often more focused on the administrative functions of being a patient – scheduling appointments, paying bills and providing access to records. To truly connect with a population, health systems need a multi-pronged approach to activate and empower consumers as active participants in their health and care. One way to encourage higher personal involvement is by encouraging the use of mobile health applications and devices.

QUESTION : 2 . Discuss the effects of health care consumer empowerment on health care outcomes

ANSWER : The goal of measuring, reporting, and comparing healthcare outcomes is to achieve the Quadruple Aim of healthcare: Improve the patient experience of care. Improve the health of populations. Reduce the per capita cost of healthcare. Reduce clinician and staff burnout.Healthcare organizations–motivated by the Quadruple Aim–measure outcomes for several reasons: Reveal areas in which interventions could improve care. Identify variations of care. Provide evidence about interventions that work best for certain types of patients under certain circumstances.

Since the 1990s, consumer empowerment in health care has been increasing, most notably with the advent of direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription medicines. Then, the rise of digital media allowed consumers to search symptoms and create communities around common disease experiences. More recently, the ability to shop for health insurance through health care exchanges and obtain treatment at drug store clinics has led to a new age of consumer empowerment.

Here are six ways that a behavioral lens can help us understand the implications of empowering consumers in health care:

1. Heuristics

Heuristics are very important. These mental shortcuts or "rules of thumb" allow us to make decisions efficiently. However, these judgments are subject to non-rational (or biased) influences in the marketplace. For example, a retail promotion like a drug store coupon can affect the price on which patients "anchor" their judgments about the appropriate cost of health care.

2. Social Perceptions

Research has shown that product efficacy can be shaped by social perceptions around cues like brand names and white lab coats. Both create expectations that can lead to greater confidence in the health care outcome.

3. Digital Media

The rise of digital media and the availability of health care information also impacts how health care decisions are made.

4. Risk Perception

As retailers like CVS and Walgreens move into the provider arena, there will hopefully be easier and less expensive access to care, but this it is not necessarily a substitute for a doctor's visit. Consumers need to understand when it's appropriate to visit the clinic (for a wellness exam, low-level tests, flu shots, etc.), and when a doctor's appointment is the better choice. This requires identifying the biases at play when we make risk assessments.

5. Regret Aversion

Regret aversion is another implication of this shift in the health care model from B2B to B2C. Studies have shown that when there is a difficult health care decision, people cope better when a doctor makes that decision on their behalf. As patients become more empowered (requesting brand name medications or choosing minute clinics over physicians), they also take on more responsibility for their health outcomes. This may affect decisions as patients seek to avoid regret.

6. Variety

Studies show that we have a non-rational bias toward wanting variety. However, research has also found that consumers become overwhelmed and tend to fall back on default choices.

QUESTION: What approaches can a professional nurse take to empower health care consumers?

ANSWER: Simply feeling that someone understands these feelings will go a long way to helping patients overcome them. This can take many forms. In particular, nurses are usually skilled in active listening, which allows patients to find solutions to their own emotional problems. This is naturally, very powerful in helping the patient to feel empowered.

5 Ways Nurses Can Empower Their Patients

1.Help Creating New Routines

Education is absolutely fundamental to patient empowerment. However, it comes in a number of varieties. The first thing that nurses can teach their patients is the role they can play in their own healthcare journeys. This is an important first step. Buy-in is crucial for patient empowerment whether someone is managing a chronic illness, require complex care or recovering from an operation.

The next level of education that nurses can provide is actual knowledge of the patient’s condition. This can be impromptu, in the form of responding to questions and queries. Alternatively, nurses can provide more structured learning by providing briefings at important stages in the patient’s care

2.Providing Access to Reputable Resources.

Once patients have acquired a certain amount of knowledge about their condition, they’ll more than likely want to start doing their own research. In the internet age, more and more people are learning about their medical conditions online. While it is positive that patients seek to acquire a greater understanding of their condition, it can be a source of confusion and misunderstandings.

Nurses can assist in this process by pointing patients in the right direction when it comes to looking for learning resources. We all know that not everything we read online is true. Nurses can offer valuable insights, recommending forums and reputable websites with information relating to specific conditions

3. As a Source of Empathy and Support

Receiving healthcare is often stressful and upsetting. Nurses know this. One of the main skills of their profession is empathy. In this way, nurses can alleviate the negative emotions that might crop up during the care process. For patient empowerment, some of the main emotional barriers include stress, fear, anxiety, and lack of confidence

4. As a Friend and Person to Confide in

One of the best ways to achieve patient empowerment is by building long term relationships. Obviously, this is especially applicable to chronic conditions. This works in a couple of ways.

Firstly, when nurses have an ongoing relationship with their patients, it fosters a sense of trust. People know in their heads that they can trust their care providers, but in practice, they might not always be forthcoming with important information.

5.Flexibility

A large part of patient empowerment is helping a person decide which healthcare options are right for them. It is common for practitioners and patients to have a much more open dialogue about healthcare options. As part of this, a nurse can show flexibility and creativity in coming up with a care package that will suit the individual needs of the patient.

6.Final Thoughts

We know that patient empowerment allows for fewer in-person visits by allowing patients to take ownership of their own healthcare journey. The role that nurses and frontline staff play in this cannot be overstated. A solid relationship between healthcare professionals and patients is more often than not the cornerstone of patient empowerment. This is where a nurse’s soft skills can really improve a patient’s experience of receiving healthcare