Helping patients help themselves: Supporting the healthcare journey

2018 Jan 9
01/09/2018
By Moriah E Ellen , Ruth Shach , Ran D Balicer

Patients often feel lost when navigating the health care system, and poor care coordination leads to negative patient outcomes, consumes resources and makes diseases more difficult to treat. Patients and citizens have become eager to take health care decision making into their own hands. To this end, solutions have been proposed which assist patients by providing them with more information and enabling them to take a more active role in their care. These include enlisting a patient navigator, consumer engagement, process mapping, decision aids, and clinical pathways. However, as the global penetration of mobile devices approaches 100%, it is timely to update and optimize health system support technologies and information dissemination pathways. There is much room for improvement and health systems are beginning to echo other industries in asking “what do consumers want?” in their applications. We believe that now is the time to address emergent gaps and supplement the irreplaceable human elements of patient navigation with a mobile or computer application. It would be able to automate parts of the process, and consolidate important information, to serve as a broad-reaching, real-time companion for healthcare consumers and their families to accompany them on their journey from diagnosis to follow up.

Keywords: Ehealth; Mhealth; Patient journey; Patient navigation.

More publications on the subject

The cultural context of patient’s autonomy and doctor’s duty: passive euthanasia and advance directives in Germany and Israel
01/11/2010
Abstract The moral discourse surrounding end-of-life (EoL) decisions is highly complex, and a comparison of Germany and Israel can highlight the impact of cultural
Selected issues in palliative care among East Jerusalem Arab residents
01/01/2010
Abstract Understanding of cultural context is important when working with Palestinian patients, particularly in Israeli hospitals. Cultural competence includes individual assessment of communication needs
End-of-life needs as perceived by terminally ill older adult patients, family and staff
01/09/2010
Abstract Purpose of the study: A comparison of inpatient end-of-life needs as perceived by terminally ill older adult patients, family, physicians and nurses, is lacking.
The cultural context of end-of-life ethics: a comparison of Germany and Israel
01/07/2010
No abstract available
Family caregiving to hospitalized end-of-life and acutely ill geriatric patients
01/08/2010
Abstract The article examines family caregiving to hospitalized older adults at the end of life (EOL). The stress stress process model was used to
Blaming the messenger and not the message
01/06/2010
No abstract available