GHEF Collaborates with the Universities of Bocconi, Milan, Cerona, Catalonia, Leeds, UK and Partners to study patient empowerment
Geneva, SWITZERLAND – This week GHEF and the Universities of Bocconi, Milan, Gerona, Cataloni, Leeds, UK and partners submitted a bid to the European Union Executive Committee for Health and Consumers to study and identify areas of improvement for patient empowerment in the management of chronic diseases.
Patient empowerment refers to the principle that patients are able to make informed choices in treating chronic diseases. Patient empowerment refers to many aspects of choice, but especially
1) a choice of two or more treatment options, locations for treatment, types of treating clinician, and mechanisms for patient involvement
2) and information about what choices are available in a language and format that is understandable and acceptable to the patient.
Such empowerment benefits the patient, but it has the added benefit of reducing health costs by decreasing unnecessary treatments, improving patient self-management, and enhancing shared decision-making.
Barriers to patient empowerment prevent the realization of such benefits. GHEF and its partners propose to identify the inherent advantages and barriers to patient empowerment and study best practices and models. They will compare, understand, validate, and recommend best practices and the transfer of such practices between different management models of chronic diseases and between health systems. Finally, they will develop scenarios through which the European Union can collaborate to improve patient empowerment.
GHEF continues to collaborate and promote research-driven solutions to health inequity.
Global Health Equity Foundation is a non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of people who lack access to health education, prevention services, and healthcare. For more information on Global Health Equity Foundation or any of its projects, please visit www.ghef.org.