By: Rick Harris

Rick Harris — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:16:11 +0000

Tapan
I’d agree with your view that patient experience (others call it patient centricity) is now a global objective for healthcare organisations.
However, if you want to explore definitions of what this ambition actually means in practice, you need to add the opinions and experiences of patients (and carers) themselves into your Figure 1 list.
I’ve spent 8 years researching how people living with chronic health conditions define their needs and the degree to which they’re being met. Whilst some of the needs are “clinical outcomes”, the majority are far more holistic, involving support from patient groups, community support workers and beyond.

Healthcare professionals undoubtedly have the patients’ interests at heart, but their perspective is typically narrowed to the clinical field they specialise in, and do not see the wider patient journey (much divorced from official patient pathways).

On a more detailed point, contrary to the hype in the industry, I’ve heard very few patients crying out for “tele heath”. Instead, they’d simply like to see some “joined-up” healthcare first, such as not having to run around the county to different facilities, hoping that their patient records will be there when they arrive! Joined-up also means clinicians having a better integrated understanding of how patient co-morbidities can be managed, rather than seeing health conditions as independent challenges to be tackled.

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Comments on: Patient Experience – Top of the Mind for Healthcare Organizations

By: Rick Harris