Are You an Activated Patient?
The consumer is key to health care reform efforts! “There is a growing consensus that activating and engaging consumers is an essential component to health care reform in the United States” (The Center for Studying Health System Change, October 2008). What characterizes an informed, activated patient? According to the Improving Chronic Care Organization (www.improvingchroniccare.org), activated patients have motivation, information, skills, and confidence necessary to effectively make decisions about their health and managing it. The Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) suggests “patient activation refers to a person’s ability to manage their health and health care” ( http://e-patients.net/archives/2008/10/41-of-adults-are-activated-patients.html).
Data collected by HSC suggest that “activation levels are especially low for people with low incomes, less education, Medicaid enrollees, and people with poor self-reported health. Higher activation levels are associated with much lower levels of unmet need for medical care and greater support from health care providers for self-management of chronic conditions.”
“While there are sharp differences between advocates of a strong government role in health care reform and those who believe reform should be achieved primarily through the private sector, most health care reformers at least acknowledge that improvements in quality, cost containment and reductions in low- value care will not occur without more informed and engaged consumers and patients. Payment reform and structural changes to care delivery only address one side of the equation. The other side is consumers and patients becoming more informed decision-makers and managers of their health” *HSC)
It is suggested “that more highly activated patients have greater success in navigating a highly complex and often confusing health care system. For example, people with chronic conditions who are at lower levels of activation are much more likely to report unmet medical needs, to delay care and to have unmet prescription drug needs. Less activated people are also somewhat less likely to have a usual source of care. These differences remain even after controlling for socioeconomic and health status and likely reflect the more passive approach that people at lower levels of activation often take in managing their health. These findings also may indicate that those who are less activated are more vulnerable to barriers to care and are more easily dissuaded from taking action when faced with financial or health system barriers” (HSC).