Patient Empowerment and Multi-Disciplinary Teams - Coursework Example

Patient Empowerment and Multi-Disciplinary Teams Introduction The term “Patient empowerment” has come into practice in medical services only in the recent years. It came into existence with the necessity to improve the care for patients by changing the approach towards care in a patient centric way. Health services have become the order of the day and it is on the rise all over the world. Patients are more inclined towards a technological savvy care nowadays and hence the need to improve services better with low cost has become the top priority for several organizations. According to WHO, in the study of promoting health, patient empowerment deals with the process of enabling patients to have superior say in several decisions taken on their health and hence providing the control of the course of action to the patient itself. This paper aims at providing plans and programs to initiate and improve patient empowerment concept in a clinic along with managing an effective team comprising of people from multiple disciplines. (Skelton 1994) The strategies that are outlined below, if brought into action can help the patient in a great way by empowering them to decide on what they want to do with their health. One of the main strategies that are followed here for patient empowerment is consent and patient education. Through the process of informed consent, a patient will be able to get better equipped of the process of healthcare that is followed for his health and thereby able to understand the risks and benefits in each step of the process. It allows the patient to get a better knowledge of what the real problem is present in his health and hence able to make very thought out decisions. Through this process, they will be able to know what could happen if they refuse a particular step, what could be the alternative procedures and what are the possible methods they could be able to manage taking into account the costs of these services. (Gibson 1991) To implement such a strategy there are many ways. Initially, the patient could be educated about the diseases in contention for them so that they could be exposed to what they could expect in future courses. This introduction in turn, would help the patients to get better treatment as well as an option to alternative paths. In the second step, the patients should be introduced to the process of treatments that needs to be followed to cure the disease. In addition to this, the patients should also be told about the risks and benefits of those treatment methods. Time should be spared in a lot to explain the concepts in layman terms as the patients may not be aware of the medical terminologies. Once this theory of explanation is done, the patient should be shown a brief history of the effects of these treatments, such as the success and failures of these treatments to different patients in the past with the time frame of recovery being mentioned. After all this, the patient should be given enough time to mull over the discussions and come to a final decision. No patient should be pressurized to make a decision. (Ellis & Popkess 1998) The entire process should be carried out keeping in mind that the basic aim of this empowerment program is to create an interactive environment which is customized according to the capabilities of the clients (patients) and their ability to cope with support strategies. Support strategies are those which target the interpretation of client’s needs and aim to achieve them. The expression of the clients in doing certain procedures has to be taken care of. The most important aspect of empowering patients is the confidentiality of the relationship between the patient and the nurse. It is because, no patient would like to get their personal health information going public and hence a sense of trust is very important for a healthy partnership. Such a relationship, if maintained would allow for the clients to express well about their health and thereby better understanding and better treatment. In addition, the patients can also know more about their own health and hence get to know the future procedures of taking care of their health. (Zimmerman & Rappaport 1988) On the part of nurses, it is important for them to acknowledge the knowledge of the patients on certain issues and at the same time share their own knowledge on such concepts, so that a healthy nurse-patient relationship is maintained. So, it can be said, if due importance is given to the situations of patients and if their self-initiated actions are appropriately supported then a common understanding and sharing of knowledge and hence a better health care is nurtured. (Skelton 1994) As a patient educator, nurses play an integral part in this empowerment process. For example, consider the case of diabetics patients, it is the responsibility of the nurses to teach the diabetics patients certain skills such as looking into their blood pressure levels, teaching ad-hoc steps to be performed in case of increase in the levels of sugar in their body and also some of safe drugs that they could intake in times of emergencies. (Serrano & Jacob 2010) This would empower the patients to take care of them on a self-managed basis. Also, nurses could guide the patients on their diet plans and routine exercises based on their illness and allow them to optimize their health to a good working condition. (Demiris 2006) As patient empowerment gets into action in a clinic, the nurse gets the important task of promoting the awareness of the patients and eliminating the preconceptions that any patient may have in their mind. This could help in a great way for feasible interaction between both parties. The patients could also re-evaluate their state thereby gaining new knowledge and give vent to a more purposeful deliberation. Thus patients get to know about their health problems and easily manage themselves for the procedures that would be undertaken to solve their problems. (Detmer et. al. 2003) Multi-Disciplinary Teams Delivering health services has come through ages. Gone are the days when an analysis of a patient involved only a doctor and the patient itself. Nowadays, any health service offered to a patient involves a multi-disciplinary team of dieticians, nurses, physicians, mental health workers and those who provide education on health. This approach allows for an extensive health care of the most important member of the team – the patient. Resource utilization can be achieved with optimum rate and the results have been fruitful in the past years. Patients can be offered one stop care where the communication among the team members plays an integral part in the process. (Barr 1997) For a successful creation of a multidisciplinary team, a proper communication channel must be created among the team members. Other features include: An apt method for meetings and decision making process A continuous focus on providing care to patients Setting up rules and regulations for team members to follow while providing care and management Setting up appropriate schedule and allowing for referral processes where patients could be referred according to their psychological as well as social needs. A guiding rule statement should be established among the team. An appropriate auditing mechanism should be put into action in order to understand the performances on both individual and team levels. This would help in a great way to improve the services of the team. Finding alternate methods and procedures in case of any fall out in the pre-planned schedule of work of the team. In a clinic, when implemented, the patients should be able to go through the diagnosis routines of the entire team in a single visit. Such kind of scheduling is mandatory for a successful running of the health services. Another major task is to notify the clients/patients about the procedure of the services that will be undertaken for them. It is mandatory because, patients could also be made aware of what to expect and makes them better prepared for these services. This also reduces the work efforts of the team by a great deal. (Kickbusch 2001) Another advantage would be that the patients would also be aware of the problems and would help in the decision-making process. Teams can be segregated into primary, secondary and subsequent groups so that , if the primary group is attending for one set of patients then the secondary group may attend for another set of patients. The order of service offered also matters. That is, a sequential method of offering service would reduce the workloads heavily. In such a process, patients with minor problems or to say common problems can be segregated to first meet up with general practitioners before moving on to specialist services. This way, most of the patients can be taken care of in the initial stages itself. Conclusion The benefits of patient empowerment and multi-disciplinary team approaches to health care services are enormous. The discussions that were done above give a clear action plan of how to go ahead in implementing these methods in any kind of clinics. These methods if implemented can help a great deal in improving the health services and providing the much need ‘continuous care’ for all patients. To conclude, one could say that human life is the most precious on earth and it would not do any harm in carrying out these methods and services that could help in saving a person, who could have died without it. References Skelton R. (1994) Nursing and empowerment: concepts and strategies. J Adv Nurs. Mar;19(3): 415-23. Gibson CH. (1991) A concept analysis of empowerment. J Adv Nurs. 16(3): 354-61. Ellis C, & Popkess S. (1998) A concept analysis on the process of empowerment. ANS Adv Nurs Sci.Dec;21(2):62-8. Zimmerman MA, & Rappaport J. (1988) Citizen participation, perceived control, and psychological empowerment. Am Community Psychol;16(5):725-50. Kickbusch, I. (2001).Health literacy: addressing the health and education divide. Health Promotion International, Oxford. Vol.16, 289 – 297. Demiris G. (2006) The diffusion of virtual communities in health care: concepts and challenges. Patient Educ Couns. Aug; 62(2):178-88. Detmer D. et. al. (2003). The Informed Patient:Study Report. Cambridge University Health. Barr, O. (1997). Interdisciplinary teamwork: consideration of the challenges. British Journal of Nursing. 6(17): 1005-101 Serrano M., & Jacob S. (2010). Engaging and Empowering Patients to Manage their Type 2 Diabetes, Part I: a knowledge, attitude, and practice gap? Adv Ther; 27:321-3 Read More