Posted on August 17, 2023 in WORDPRESS by reyojoson
Patient-centered care management is conventionally defined as the practice of caring for patients (and their relatives) in ways that are meaningful and valuable to the individual patient.
It conventionally includes listening to, informing and involving patients in their medical care, note, medical care, which includes medical diagnostics and medical treatment. It usually does not include ANCILLARY support to the medical care which is usually left to the patient and relatives to accomplish on their own.
In the past I have written the following related topics:
Patient-centered care management includes assisting patients in looking for an affordable hospital
Extending help to patients outside Metro Manila through telemedicine and social media
As I have said:
Patient-centered care management should not be confined to listening to, informing and involving patients in their medical care. It can and should go beyond this. If needed by a patient, a physician may and must (if within his capability) provide ancillary support.
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Doing patient-centered care management is also doing compassionate patient management. My operational concept or definition of a compassionate physician is one who feels and shows sympathy and concern for patients especially those in deed of one.
All physicians are expected to be compassionate to patients. The deeper the sympathy to patients, the stronger is the desire to alleviate. The stronger the desire to alleviate, the greater and heavier the assistance to give. Ultimately, it is the assessment of the magnitude and weight of assistance given that determines the degree of compassion.
Here I will add two more inclusions on the ancillary services / support in the patient-centered care management.
ASSISTING PATIENTS AND RELATIVES IN THEIR DOCUMENT REQUIREMENTS
From actual experience up to now, patients and relatives oftentimes, not to say always, complain of difficulty (including delay) in getting the necessary documents prior to discharge from hospital such as discharge summary, copies of lab results, etc. Also, they have difficulty in getting the needed documents after discharge for use in their insurances, SSS, and GSIS requirements such as medical abstracts, medical certificates, etc.
Patient-centered care management should take note of these common problems being faced by patients and relatives in getting their documents from the hospitals. These problems should be mitigated if not totally avoided. On a personal level, I am wary of these and have been trying to help. If need be, I call up the concerned staff to prepare the documents as quickly and as soon as possible.
FACILITATING ACCOUNT SETTLEMENT OF PATIENTS ON DISCHARGE FROM HOSPITALS
Again, from actual experiences up to now, patients and relatives oftentimes, not to say always, complain of difficulty (including delay) in settling their hospital bills. They have the money to pay but there is a long waiting time which can be caused by a lot of factors such as no discharge order from physicians yet; no posting of professional fees by private attending physicians yet; no discharge summary yet; etc.
Patient-centered care management should take note of these common problems being faced by patients and relatives in settling their hospital bills. These problems should be mitigated if not totally avoided. On a personal level, I am wary of these and have been trying to help. If need be, I call up the concerned staff to speed up the processing of hospital bills.
ROJ@23oct30