How can clinicians form effective partnerships with patients to improve healthcare outcomes?

Today, our world of healthcare is attempting to answer rising patient expectations by transitioning from being reactive to proactive, with organisations moving towards a more patient-centred approach, realising the value of partnering with patients to improve healthcare outcomes.   

According to the World Health Organization’s charter, “health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” This recognises that treating patients for a specific disease or issue is not enough to maintain good long-term health. 

Each patient has their own unique story and to provide predictive, preventative, personalised and participatory care we need to understand that when it comes to healthcare, one size doesn’t fit all.   

Patient-centred care recognises the patient as a partner and as an individual, placing them at the centre. By partnering with patients and allowing them to take an active role in their healthcare, clinicians can gain access to a wealth of information like personal circumstances, desires, values and background. Having this holistic view enables the clinician to make more informed medical decisions and provide better care, which in turn means lower costs to providers.   

Forming effective patient partnerships   

When it comes to forming effective partnerships with patients, there are four key points for clinicians to consider. This blog is the first in a series on the topic of partnering with patients, and in each blog, we will expand on these areas in more detail.    

Listening to patients 

The first step towards an effective patient partnership is listening to patients. Whilst this may seem obvious, issues such as clinician cognitive overload mean that often doctors are spending so much time searching and not finding useful patient data amongst an excess of data. This allows them little or no time to listen and digest the valuable information a patient can contribute towards their care.    

Engaging the patient   

Clinicians can motivate patients to engage in their care by empowering them with the knowledge, the tools and the desire to better manage their clinical situation. Partnering with patients to understand their individual, unique needs results in tailored care and means patients are no longer receiving passive care but have become an active participant. Motivating patients to take this active role is also a steppingstone towards preventative care.   

Sharing information  

With the promise of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) to make health information easily and securely accessible, technical barriers for data inclusion from patient engagement apps to clinical systems is lowered. This allows clinicians to safely share medical records with real-world data through a Patient Portal, allowing a patient to have easy access to their records.

Sharing responsibility   

Trusting and enabling patients to take ownership of aspects of their care will assist clinicians in sharing responsibility with patients. Tools such as an integrated medicines platform equip patients with the knowledge and understanding of their medicines regimen and give them the power to input notes and update medications. This helps to promote medication adherence and puts some responsibility back onto the patient to take control of their medication regimen. With care and guidance, patients can be entrusted safely to manage aspects of their condition.  

How can health technology help to bridge the gap?    

Orion Health believes in putting the patient at the heart of every decision.    

Our Orion Health Amadeus is a platform for advanced population health management that provides healthcare professionals with the real-time cognitive support they need to make the best possible decisions at the point of care.   

Amadeus is a highly scalable platform built on modern technology that can aggregate all types of health data, from both traditional and non-traditional sources.     

The open platform scales to accommodate the vast amount of data generated by new models of care, to support the journey from population health management to precision medicine.     

Interested in learning more about Orion Health Amadeus?   

This blog is the first in the series of blogs on partnering with patients. The next in the series will look in more detail at how clinicians can benefit from listening to their patients.