Dr. Nicole Rochester: Why Is It Important for You to Empower Patients?
Dr. Nicole Rochester: Why Is It Important for You to Empower Patients? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
How can you empower patients, and why is it important? Expert Dr. Nicole Rochester, founder of My GPS Doc, discusses methods that she employs to empower patients, how it alters the patient role, and the impact on their care.
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Transcript:
Dr. Nicole Rochester:
The primary way that I empower patients is really by making sure that they understand that they are empowered and that they are literally the center of their own medical team. I think that in today’s healthcare environment, many patients and their family members kind of defer to the experts in the room, and that’s wonderful.
And yes, those of us who are healthcare professionals have a lot of knowledge and expertise, but I always like to remind patients and family members that they know much about their own unique medical situation, about their body, about their symptoms than we do, and so I really empower them by helping them to embrace that role of being the center and sometimes the leader of their medical team.
I empower them by encouraging them to ask questions in healthcare settings, to not be afraid to speak up when they have concerns about their health or about the treatment or the management of their condition. And ultimately, I really like to just elevate the role of the patient and those who support them. And I think that, ultimately, that allows them to not only show up for themselves more powerfully, but also ultimately to receive better care.
