In a recent Q&A published on the Stanford Medicine X blog, technologist and innovator Lucien Engelen discusses why inviting patients to take a more active role in their own care could help in solving some of the challenges currently facing the health-care industry.
On the topic of how engaging patients can benefit health care, Engelen says:
Let’s start with the obvious point, which is not often stated: Patients are the least used resource in healthcare at present. There’s no possibility of cutting the 10-minute consultation to five minutes, I think. So for that we have to come up with smart ideas. Right now, we’re basically doing a lot of the same things that we did 60 years ago. We bring cardiac patients into our outpatient clinic to take their weight and their blood pressure, for example, even though they could easily do those things at home, giving clinicians time to do other stuff.
Giving patients access to their own data, in terms of electronic health records and correct, understandable, findable information, will improve quality and also prevent error.
The full Q&A is worth a read.
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