Institute for Healthcare Improvement: Massachusetts Engaging Consumers as Partners in Care

Institute for Healthcare Improvement: Massachusetts Engaging Consumers as Partners in Care: "The fact is that 80 to 90 percent of the health care we receive in our lifetimes is delivered not in hospitals, nursing homes, or doctors’ offices, but in our homes — in bathrooms, bedrooms, and kitchens — and not by medical staff, but by ourselves and members of our families. So, the way I look at it, consumers, patients, and family members are among the most powerful and least mobilized stakeholders in the health care system. Consider this picture: a family, a husband and wife, say, with a sick relative, and on Monday they’re in the ICU with 40 people taking care of the patient. On Wednesday they’re on a medical-surgical unit with 10 people taking care of the patient. And on Friday they’re back home, in their dining room, with a bed set up and the medicines all on the night stand, and it’s just them, the two of them, taking care of the patient. So what this partnership is all about is helping the consumer become informed and engaged, and take on this role as a partner in care. If we want to dramatically change the way patients participate in health care, we have to create that system. This isn’t a quick fix;it’s about culture change, and we know that takes time. So we’re planning for a five- to seven-year campaign. And we have three basic goals: 1) to make consumers aware of the problem of current variations in health care; 2) to encourage consumers to be much more involved in their health care; and 3) to mobilize consumers to be advocates for system change.