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How to Be an Empowered Patient

May 25, 2012 Natasha Tracy

Being a mental health patient is more than just sitting in a room and doing what a doctor says. Being a good patient is about being empowered, an e-patient.

Have you heard of the e-patient? If not, it’s OK, I hadn’t heard of them up until about a year ago either. And quite frankly, once I did hear the term, no one really explained it to me so I figured it was an “electronic” patient – maybe one who walked around with their health records on a USB stick, or maybe a cyborg patient (in which case, I qualify).

Well, it turns out that there aren’t a lot of cyborg patients and while an e-patient might walk around with their medical records, “e-patient” actually refers to patients who are equipped, enabled, empowered and engaged. And, depending on whom you ask, also educated, expressive, expert and electronic.

That’s a lot of stuff. And quite frankly, way too much pressure, so let’s boil it down – an e-patient is one who’s engaged with their own healthcare, and ideally, we all should be one.

The Empowered Patient

I admit, even the notion of an empowered patient is a scary one. What does that mean, exactly? Patients don’t have the prescription pad, after all.

This is true. Nor do we hold the scalpel, wear the lab coat or collect the blood samples. Seemingly, all these people would have more power than the person on the other end of the hypodermic.

But this actually isn’t true. Actually the patient has all the power. The patient has the power to agree or disagree to treatment.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

But being an e-patient isn’t just about figuring out that you have all the power – it’s also about doing the work that makes that power make sense. That’s when all the “equipped, enabled, engaged, educated” and whatnot come in. There’s no use in having the power if you can’t use it intelligently. There’s no use in refusing a treatment you don’t understand. There’s no use in arguing with a doctor on a point you haven’t researched. There’s no point in seeing a doctor if you’re not going to listen to him anyway.

We all must admit, however, that we are not always in possession of what we need to make the best decision about our own healthcare. Sometimes we are too sick to do it. Sometimes we don’t have time to learn what we need. Sometimes we don’t have the wherewithal to do what needs to be done.

And that’s OK. Part of having the power is knowing when to give it up. It’s about knowing when to let the doctor make the decision for you because you’re just out of your depth. We can’t all be “e” all the time.

The E-Patient

But when we can, however, I’d say it’s best to knock off as many of those “e” words are possible. You probably can’t be expected to be the all, all the time, but some of the time, we can be. Here are some small engagements to try:

Doing any one of these things can improve your engagement in your own healthcare. You don’t have to do it all, but any part of the “e” can help make you treatment outcome more positive.

If you’re interested in e-patient issues I recommend you check out the Society of Participatory Medicine. I am a member and they work to encourage positive engagement between patients and health professionals.

You can find Natasha Tracy on Facebook or GooglePlus or @Natasha_Tracy on Twitter.

APA Reference
Tracy, N. (2012, May 25). How to Be an Empowered Patient, HealthyPlace. Retrieved on 2024, March 28 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/breakingbipolar/2012/05/the-empowered-patient



Author: Natasha Tracy

Natasha Tracy is a renowned speaker, award-winning advocate, and author of Lost Marbles: Insights into My Life with Depression & Bipolar. She's also the host of the podcast Snap Out of It! The Mental Illness in the Workplace Podcast.

Find Natasha Tracy on her blog, Bipolar BurbleTwitter, InstagramFacebook, and YouTube.

Natasha Tracy
June, 3 2012 at 7:49 am

Dave,
For those of you who don't know, Dave is the poster boy for the e-patient movement - so great to have you comment on Breaking Bipolar. Thanks for taking the time.
People should absolutely check you out. Happy to pitch in for the cause.
:)
- Natasha

E-Patient Dave
June, 3 2012 at 7:45 am

Great work, Natasha! It's good to have you in the society too.
For folks who want to learn more about e-patients, as you said, the society's site is a good (brief) start. A lot of what the society's currently doing is on our blog http://e-patients.net and our journal http://jopm.org has several mental health articles.
Finally, the videos page on my site www.epatientdave.com has some of my speeches at conferences where I explain the history of the e-patient movement.
Keep it up!

abbie
May, 27 2012 at 9:37 am

Natash thanks for a great post. After interacting w/mental health professionals most of my life, it's good to hear from others that Practitioners DO appreciate a pro-active role on the part of the patient. I find that life is far better when a Dr. doesn't think that they're the only person present that knows about ME. Thanks for the validation.

Dr Musli Ferati
May, 26 2012 at 8:56 pm

As far as is concerned to mentally ill patient, the active participation of patient in complex psychiatric treatment is very important part of management the respective mental illness. In this direction, the psychiatrist, previously, should to inform the patient in appropriate manner the real nature of its mental disorder: its causes, course, consequence, therapeutic process and the inherent necessity to change general behave toward life daily challenge. Therefore, by all these and many other circumstances that worsen the treatment of mental disorder, the patient should to have active concern, in order to arrange successfully numerous need of psychiatric treatment, that is long and complex procedure. In a word, these are the crucial parameters that should to fill out the so called e-patient.

Natasha Tracy
May, 26 2012 at 8:39 am

Hi Jennifer,
That's great. Hopefully people can learn from your example and take more of their healthcare into their own hands. Good for you :)
- Natasha Tracy

Jennifer
May, 25 2012 at 3:31 pm

Natasha,
Thank you SO much for this article. I saw how being an "e-patient" can be very empowering just the other day. I communicated my needs in a clear and concise manner with reasons for the med change. My doctor said, "Let's give it a go!". I am going to read more about being an e-patient. I want to be even more educated.

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