American initiatives
The main push for patient aides to inform shared decision making is from the US Government and health payors and is driven by their efforts to control escalating healthcare costs while improving the quality of care.
For the past six years the state of Massachusetts has produced videos to help terminally ill patients and their carers better understand end-of-life decisions. Washington State, among others, provides patients with video aides to support shared decision making. And three patient aide projects sponsored by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation are expected to yield savings of more than US$130 million within three years, while enhancing the quality of healthcare.
According to James Weinstein, CEO and President of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health System, comprised of 16 medical centres that treat millions, “Patients want to have good information about their health care decisions, which is independent of any bias.â€
Jack Daniel, Executive Vice-President of Med-Expert International, a Californian based company, which produces patient aides for people on Medicare and Medicaid said, “When a person calls us we can say here’s what the world’s best medical minds are saying about your condition.â€
Takeaways
In 2010 business leaders participating in the prestigious Salzburg Global Seminar concluded that, “Informing and involving patients in decisions about their medical care is the greatest untapped resource in healthcare." Shared decision making they said, “is ethically right and practical, since it lowers costs and reduces unwarranted practice variationsâ€.
Over the past 30 years patients have become better educated and better informed about their healthcare options. Everything suggests that this is just the beginning. Over the next decade, healthcare systems will be increasingly challenged by aging populations, escalating incidences of chronic diseases and fiscal constraints and consumers and communications will assume a more pivotal role. This will accelerate the need for premium, trusted, online health information that patients can access at speed, anytime, anywhere and anyhow.
Until patient aides become commonplace we will not change the way we communicate inside hospitals and doctors’ surgeries. Health costs will continue to rise, the provision of healthcare will continue to be stretched and the quality of care will continue to be challenged.
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