7 Ways to Innovate Your Healthcare

By: Amanda Greene, Healthcare Activist, @LAlupusLady

CHOOSE ACTION

You don’t need to wear a cape or be a superhero to innovate your healthcare.  All you need to do is decide to take a bigger role in your life.  Soon you will realize that it is easy to transform your health.  The first step on the journey is choosing to step into the part of managing one’s care and being your own “health activist.”  Once you engage in your health, it is difficult to stop advocating it to others.  Welcome to the participatory healthcare system. 

ADJUST ATTITUDE

Open your mind and shift your perspective as you begin taking responsibility and accountability for managing your health.  Navigating a healthcare team demonstrates increased patient adherence to medical directives.  In addition to following “doctor’s orders”, one can show how much the healthcare team is appreciated.  Today’s healthcare professionals from physician’s assistants to pharmacists are typically overworked.  Being kind to the people who take care of your health can make a huge difference and impact whether or not you have a winning experience.

COMMUNICATE

Share your story, be an active listener and know that your perspective is valuable.  There needs to be an established relationship of transparency and trust between the community of people invested/included for Participatory Healthcare to work.  The established system won’t change without the “patient voice”- so be sure to use yours.  One day we are all going to be patients and healthcare consumers -- knowing this, hopefully, the system will improve, but hope is not enough.  It takes communication and sharing to shift the paradigm of healthcare for yourself and others.

MONITOR

Using currently available advanced technology to build and supplement, our healthcare record can be a beneficial asset to participatory healthcare.  There are many online applications and wearable monitors that can help us achieve wellness by using our smart phones, watches and/or tablets.  Whether you keep a food diary, wear a FitBit or use a symptom tracker, you are participating and monitoring your health.  If a person with a chronic illness adds the use of monitoring tools, it is a simple way to affect their health plan and can help the healthcare team see trends that impact the condition on a daily, seasonal or annual basis.  Data from patient’s monitors who use the devices/tools and share the information should demonstrate improved individual outcomes and foster the adoption of precision medical practices.

COLLABORATE

Knowing our roles and sharing our information is essential to any healthy collaboration.  Individually, we can strive to find ways to work on achieving our ultimate (emotional, physical and mental) health goals together.  People with chronic conditions have the ability to garner a sense of control and have more to gain by learning how their body works and realizing what lifestyle choices impact their wellness.  United patients and industry professionals can and will transform healthcare successfully.

EXPLORE

Discovering that there are many options on the path to wellness is a “side effect” of the participatory healthcare journey.  Utilizing online resources can lead someone to a discussion with their healthcare provider about the pros and cons of conventional treatment over alternative therapies.  When a person is offered choices, it is empowering and gives a boost to an individual self-esteem which can develop and impact the immune response.  The treasure is not hidden but available to anyone with the time to search.  

PARTICIPATE

Transforming the world can happen and you can be a part of it.  From the privacy of the exam room to the public arena of Capitol Hill, it is up to you to join and participate.  Whether you choose to take action and how much is up to you.  If you are actively engaged in your healthcare and treatment your providers will notice.  If you choose to actively engage online and realize that by advocating for the change you desire you impact change.  Be courageous and take it to the next level.  

I am and will be traveling to Washington, DC to attend the Personal Connected Health Alliance Connected Health Conference.  I am proudly “participating” on the “Patients as Innovators and Partners” panel on Monday, December 12th at 4:30PM in Potomac C.  I hope to see you there.