Why Is Patient Empowerment Important?

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to patient care, so patient empowerment is important for delivering a better healthcare experience. From driving medical outcomes to improving a patient’s time in hospital, supporting patient empowerment has various benefits for healthcare professionals and patients.

In this blog, we discuss why patient empowerment is so crucial for transforming healthcare.

• • What is patient empowerment?
  • How does patient empowerment drive medical outcomes and lower costs?
  • Why implement patient empowerment?
  • How can patient empowerment be implemented?
  • How does SPARK Fusion® enhance patient empowerment?
  • Using patient empowerment to measure efficiency

What is patient empowerment?

Patient empowerment allows patients to take control over the decisions and actions regarding their healthcare. For patient empowerment to truly be implemented, patients must be educated at the first point of contact to understand everything they need to know about their condition. 

Empowered patients have a greater understanding of how to navigate the healthcare system. With this knowledge, they can confidently ask for the information they need. They will also develop self-awareness and become an equal partner in their healthcare with their doctor.

After gaining vital knowledge about their condition from their doctor, other tools, such as digital platforms, can be used to develop their knowledge.

Information sharing is crucial to patient empowerment, and research suggests that health outcomes are better in patients who are more involved in decisions about their treatment. 

As patients understand more about their illness, they can actively take steps at home to aid their recovery, potentially reducing repeat hospital visits and lowering further costs. 

Although opinions vary on whether or not digital literacy is essential to support patient empowerment, many healthcare professionals believe it’s an absolute requirement for patients to be able to find accurate, reliable information. 

Patient empowerment is more than enabling patients to assert greater control over their healthcare. It allows a more collaborative relationship, where doctors and patients can collaborate to decide on the most appropriate care pathway and treatments.

How does patient empowerment drive medical outcomes and lower costs?

When empowered, patients become more involved in their healthcare, gaining vital understanding and knowledge to make informed decisions. With this knowledge, doctors and patients will be on the same page, improving communication and the doctor-patient relationship. 

This drives positive medical outcomes and lowers costs, decreasing any patient confusion concerning their condition. 

Shared decision-making leads to choices that better reflect a patient's preference, resulting in more favourable health outcomes, including less anxiety, quicker recovery and increased compliance with treatment regimes. The Aqua programme has demonstrated this in cases where teams have undertaken shared decision-making with their patients. 

As a result, they found improvements in health indicators such as better blood glucose in diabetes patients, shorter length of stay in hospital, fewer patients not attending health appointments and fewer complaints.

Simply diagnosing, treating and moving on to the next patient may seem like the most efficient way to implement healthcare, but encouraging patients to engage in self-care is much more effective. 

As patients grow confident in self-care, they become less dependent on the NHS, giving staff time to spend with other patients. It’s all part of a growing self-care movement focusing on supporting people to look after their own physical and mental health. 

This, in turn, will drive positive medical outcomes and lower costs as people break the cycle of dependency.

Why implement patient empowerment?

There’s a variety of obstacles that stand in the way of medical practitioners providing the care they want. Appointment delays, budget restraints, handwritten errors and limited staff are common issues within the healthcare sector. 

In the urgent and emergency care survey 2024, the findings indicated a number of key areas for improvement.

• 61% of patients reported ambulance handovers happening within 15 minutes, 23% waited between 16 minutes to 1 hour and 17% waited more than 1 hour.
• 28% of A&E patients said waited for more than 1 hour to be assessed by a nurse or doctor.
  
• 49% of A&E patients and 40% of UTC patients waited more than 30 minutes for their initial assessment.
  
• 47% of A&E patients and 54% of UTC patients were not able to get help with their condition or symptoms.
  
• Just over a quarter of both A&E (27%) and UTC (26%) patients said staff did not help them to control their pain.
  
• 11% of A&E respondents had at least one communication support need. Of those, more than a quarter (27%) said they were not given help with their needs. In addition, less than half (44%) said staff ‘definitely’ provided help. Support needs included translator or interpreter (3%); easy read materials (2%), large print materials (1%) or another type (6%).

• 25% of A&E patients and almost 1 in 5 UEC patients (19%) report that their anxieties and fear were not discussed at all.
  
• Of respondents who felt they needed a conversation about any further health or social care, just over a third (31%) of A&E patients and nearly a quarter (23%) of UTC patients said staff did not discuss it with them, but they would have liked them to.
  
• 28% of those who contacted any health and social care services after leaving A&E said they were not available when needed.
  Of those who were discharged and sent home, 79% of A&E patients were told who to contact if they were worried about their condition or treatment; however, 21% were not. Similarly, 82% of UTC patients were told but 18% were not. Forty-four per cent of A&E patients and 45% of UTC patients said they were told to contact their GP.
  
• Of the 30% who had been to A&E previously for the same condition, 13% said they did not get the help they needed on their previous visit.

Overall, it's clear that there’s a huge need for administrative tasks to become more streamlined and for patients to become more self-sufficient during their stay. By implementing resources to support patient empowerment, patients will instantly have access to everything they need, such as ordering meals if they’re an in-patient, a digital map of the hospital, and their appointment date and time. 

Ultimately, patients will no longer need to ask staff for assistance, meaning staff will spend less time tending to non-medical queries and can focus on other important matters. 

Alongside this, the chance of re-admission will be reduced if a patient is more in control of their own health and are able to make informed decisions.

How can patient empowerment be implemented?

Patient empowerment can be delivered through a WiFi solution that powers a patient engagement platform, giving patients access to more information about their healthcare management. 

As a result, patients will know about their follow-up appointments and post-discharge treatments, reducing confusion and missed appointments, saving time, money and resources. 

By implementing this technology, staff, patients and visitors will access a secure, high-speed solution that ensures they can always stay connected to friends and family, check in to appointments, watch healthcare videos and even order their meal. 

SPARK Media® is an example of an engagement solution which provides everything patients and visitors need for a smoother journey during their hospital stay or visit. This bring-your-own-device (BYOD) solution enables users to benefit from entertainment and information from their fingertips, while SPARK Fusion®, our bedside infotainment solution, provides an even greater level of customisable benefits while integrating with staff services to improve patient empowerment. 

How does SPARK Fusion® enhance patient empowerment?

SPARK Fusion® empowers patients in a number of ways.

Better communication: One of SPARK Fusion®'s greatest strengths is its instant messaging feature. This empowers staff and patients with better contextual control of requests, rather than relying on the age-old nurse call button – which keeps requests limited by ambiguity. Everything from a simple request for a glass of water can be clarified to streamline the level and therefore quality of care each patient receives – while language barriers are broken down through digital translation to make communication even easier for non-English speaking staff and patients. 

Room control: Patients are more in control of their own healthcare environment thanks to the room control feature they can access via their bedside devices. For example, patients can control the lighting or temperature of the room from their fingertips to maximise their level of comfort, without relying on busy and stretched staff members to do this for them.

Meal ordering: Through SPARK Fusion®, patients have greater freedom with regards to their meal choices. Instead of receiving a paper-based menu at rigidly allocated meal times, patients are less pressured to make their decision in-the-moment with a digitised version they can access 24/7 vis their bedside device. This gives them more time to consider their meals properly, limiting unnecessary wastage, ensuring they get the right level of nutritional intake during their hospital stay and better levels of patient satisfaction.

Education: Each bedside device can be individually tailored at ward-level, so patients access the right educational content to suit their personal circumstances. For example, the bedside devices on maternity wards can be customised with informational resources around pre and post-pregnancy – supporting patients with the right knowledge during and beyond their stay to limit the risk of readmission. 

Beyond these benefits, there also many more empowering advantages to SPARK Fusion®. To examine them in greater detail, simply download our product brochure for more information. 

Using patient empowerment to measure efficiency

A reliable engagement system will do much more than boost patient empowerment. After a patient connects to either the WiFi or uses SPARK Media® or SPARK Fusion®, Trusts will gain insight into how many people are on site, how long they stay, what services they’re using and more. 

Trusts can streamline their services and redistribute resources more effectively with these analytics, maximising hospital spaces by analysing the hospital’s most busy times.

Long stays in hospital can be very isolating for many people. With a greater understanding of patients, Trusts can improve the visitor experience and ensure their stay in hospital will be as pleasant as possible. 

It’s essential to take steps to help healthcare professionals and patients have a more positive experience in hospitals. We’ve made it easier to determine what those steps are in our product brochure.