Patient Advocacy

Patient advocacy is a healthcare specialization concerned with educating patients about obtaining necessary healthcare. Patient advocates can include government consumer advocacy agencies that provide services to the public and both for-profit and non-profit service providers. Patient advocacy also includes groups that develop policies and legislation to improve patient care, such as the American Diabetes Association, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the American Cancer Society. Most patient advocacy organizations are nonprofit and focus on one area of healthcare or a particular disease. While they conduct fund-raising and awareness campaigns and produce literature and information services, they do not provide clinical support or act as a liaison between patient and provider.

Overview

A patient advocate can be an individual or an organization. Some individual patient advocates work for the organizations directly responsible for patient care, such as hospitals and nursing homes, and many are former case managers, social workers, doctors, or nurses who have refocused their careers to help patients make wise healthcare decisions. Patient advocates can help elderly patients in assisted living facilities and nursing homes with transportation, paperwork, and healthcare appointments. One of an advocate’s primary responsibilities is protecting a patient's privacy according to local and national laws.

Patient advocacy is expanding in areas such as clinical research, genetic disorders, and cancer. The field of patient advocacy originated in the 1970s patient rights movement, when the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) provided the impetus for the patient bill of rights in 1970. The NWRO patient bill of rights became the foundation for the American Hospital Associations Patient Bill of Rights that was adopted in 1972.

In its Code of Ethics for Nurses, the American Nurses Association (ANA) specifies that the nurse’s primary commitment is to the patient, whether the patient is an individual, family, group, or community, and that the nurse is committed to advocating and protecting the health, safety, and rights of the patient. The ANA includes patient advocacy in its definition of nursing and defines it as protecting, promoting, and optimizing health and abilities. Part of the patient advocacy mission of the ANA is preventing illness and injury, alleviating suffering through diagnosis and treatment, and advocating care of individuals, families, communities.

Patient advocates can provide transition help for older patients moving into assisted living and nursing homes, arrange transportation, assist with bill tracking, and coordinate payment assistance for all ages of patients. An advocate can also take patients to healthcare appointments, explain procedures to them, and provide medical literature and research services to the patient’s family. An advocate must protect a patient’s privacy according to local and national laws by treating all patient and family information as privileged and protected. Some institutions require a patient advocacy contract for release of medical information and a power of attorney for healthcare before a patient advocate can discuss confidential information.

In health advocacy organizations, patient advocates may sit on investigative and advisory panels to monitor projects that will directly impact patients’ lives, and they may also sit on finance boards to advocate better protection for patients and healthcare providers.

Patient advocacy groups include the National Patient Advocate Foundation, a nonprofit organization with the mission of improving access to and reimbursement for high-quality healthcare with legislative reform at state and federal levels; the Patient Advocate Foundation, which provides professional case management services to individuals; and the Alliance of Professional Health Advocates, an organization for private, professional patient advocates.

Bibliography

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Menard, Ellen. The Not So Patient Advocate: How to Get the Health Care You Need Without Fear or Frustration. Bardof, 2009.

Turnbull, Ann, H. Rutherford Turnbull, H. Rutherford, Elizabeth J. Erwin, Leslie C. Soodak, and Karrie A. Shogren. Families, Professionals, and Exceptionality: Positive Outcomes through Partnerships and Trust. 6th ed., Pearson, 2010.

White-Farnham, Jamie, et al. Women's Health Advocacy: Rhetorical Ingenuity for the 21st Century. Routledge, 2020, EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=2142415&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.