Patient Advocacy for Health Care Quality: Strategies for Achieving Patient-centered Care

Article Type: Recent publications From: International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Volume 22, Issue 3

Jo Anne L. Earp, Elizabeth A. French and Melissa B. Gilkey,Jones and Bartlett,2008,ISBN-10: 0763749613 ISBN-13: 9780763749613

Keywords: Healthcare quality, Patient-Centred care, Patient advocacy, Medical education

Patient Advocacy for Health Care Quality specifically examines not just what the problems are in healthcare quality, but how advocacy – by professionals and lay-people from within and from outside health systems –can help ensure that best practices get adopted.

In highly readable prose this text blends many concrete examples, real-life vignettes, and up-to-date research literature. An emphasis on conceptual frameworks, debates, and ethical issues within the field makes the text appealing to graduate-level learners. Authored by real life advocates working in the field, this book is a window into the realities of advocating in many different roles (as a physician, nurse or public health educator; as a hospital administrator; as a parent; as a lobbyist; as the head of a non-profit organization, as a researcher, etc.).

Contents include:

• 1.

  “Introduction”:

  • “What is patient advocacy?”

  • “The US health care system and the need for patient advocacy.”

• 2.

  “Strategy 1 understanding what patients are doing.”

• 3.

  “Strategy 2 improving providers’ ability to communicate.”

• 4.

  “Strategy 3 transforming hospital and med school.”

• 5.

  “Strategy 4 making consumers’ voice heard.”

• 6.

  “Strategy 5 advancing education and professional.”

• 7.

  “Conclusion.”