Patient Knowledge Recognized by Hospitals

A recent Wall Street Journal article, reported that, "Patients are getting help from experts with no medical degrees but plenty of know-how: fellow patients who have faced the same health challenges."  The inset title of the article is "The Informed Patient." The core advice in my book, Patient Confidential, Tips and Advice To Keep You Safe As You Navigate the Healthcare System, is that the patient must inform himself. The article reports on the formalization of an informal process of informing patients which has gone on for years, namely patients mentoring others who have the same medical condition. Before several of my surgeries, I asked friends who I knew had undergone the same surgery to tell me about the experience and give me practical tips. I have done the same for many others.

 

But, finding a friend with the same condition is happenstance. Now healthcare providers are formalizing that process. Dr. Paul King, Director of the Center for Joint Replacement at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Maryland, is quoted as saying, "We have all these nurses and surgeons who haven't actually had a knee or hip replacement and don't know firsthand what it is like." So, Anne Arundel began a program and trains mentors. Mentors, of course, are not giving medical advice or developing physical therapy plans beyond what the therapist did. Their job is to tell patients what it's "really like" from the patient perspective, and to help them follow the instructions of the professional healthcare providers. With such a program, the patient simply signs up to have a mentor and the hospital matches her with one.

 

In a post to this blog on October 27, 2014, titled "Man Bites Dog," I wrote how I advised my cardiologist what it was like to be a knee replacement patient, and how much he said that helped him. He knew what he knew and I knew what I knew.

I hope healthcare institutions all over the country rapidly establish and support patient mentor programs.