Patient engagement initiatives lead to patient acts, activities, and actions. Boiled down all the way, patient engagement is about getting things done. It's about work...and now that we've established that we can start in on the business of exploring and explaining why the title of this series is what it is.
Everyone I know who's an employee thinks of his work as his "job." It's the business as usual conception; we all can relate. It's what lets us distinguish between being "on the job" and "off the job," between being "at work" ugh and "at play" I'm free. It permits us to believe "It's not my job." Or, similarly, "It's the job of those smart people (those specialists) over there." It makes human resources of us.
To a theoretically pure and one-dimensional manager, resources are resources. The work an engaged patient or patient partner does for an organization is qualitatively no different than what an employee doing his job does. Or a machine doing its.
Looked at that way, having patients (rather than employees) do the job should be a real boon to management, no?
Take for an example the job of observing and reporting on a kid's school performance and behavior while he or she is on a new medication. For the price of no wages, salaries, or tips*, the doctor, i.e., the manager in this case, gets much needed information. It's going to be high-quality info, too, because the teacher giving it is right there in the classroom, paying close attention. The insight gleaned should then lead to more effective (less wasteful, less guess-based) treatment. Economical and quality outcomes, in other words, should both be favorably impacted.
To a theoretically pure and one-dimensional manager, resources are resources. The work an engaged patient or patient partner does for an organization is qualitatively no different than what an employee doing his job does. Or a machine doing its.
Looked at that way, having patients (rather than employees) do the job should be a real boon to management, no?
Take for an example the job of observing and reporting on a kid's school performance and behavior while he or she is on a new medication. For the price of no wages, salaries, or tips*, the doctor, i.e., the manager in this case, gets much needed information. It's going to be high-quality info, too, because the teacher giving it is right there in the classroom, paying close attention. The insight gleaned should then lead to more effective (less wasteful, less guess-based) treatment. Economical and quality outcomes, in other words, should both be favorably impacted.
I believe the way we look at work and jobs going forward could have a lot to do with whether or not we're able to use patient engagement to the hilt, and, in turn, successfully tackle the gigantic challenges that life-threatening diseases and conditions represent.
*which is not to say there wouldn't be costs involved
*which is not to say there wouldn't be costs involved
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