Patient-self management is a systematic provision of educative and supportive interventions by health care staff to increase skills and confidence in the management of health problems among patients. It includes regular assessment of progress, challenges, problem solution and goal setting.
Self-management is mostly for the people with chronic conditions to simplify daily management of their health. Self-management support inspires people to learn more about the disease conditions affecting them to take an active role in their health care. Patient self-management also targets patients' families for them to understand the central role in the management of their illness to engage in health behaviors and make informed decisions about their care.
Components of patient self-management
Self-management support is quite extensive to include these essential components to help patients in the better management of their chronic conditions.
- Providing compassionate and patient-centered care Involvement of an entire team in planning, implementing and following up patient visits
- Participation of the patient in setting goals
- Planning patient visits to focus on prevention as well as care management instead of acute or critical care
- Provide customized skills training and education using the most appropriate materials for health literacy levels and different cultures
- Make referrals to the community-based resources like special programs that help patients to follow a particular exercise plan or quit smoking
- Follow up a patient's developments through phone calls, text messages, email, social media or other means for the support it taking care of them and gathering feedback.
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Importance of Patient Self-Management
Patient self-management increases the level of involvement in treatment and care of their conditions. Many patients do not grasp much of what their clinicians say to them thus cannot be part of the decision making about the management of their circumstances or take actions that help in improving quality of care.
Such patients are ill-prepared to make the best choices and sustain healthy behaviors because they require a collaborative relationship. Patient- self-management brings a new health partnership between the health care providers, their teams, patients, and families. This partnership supports the patients to build the confidence and gain skills that help to lead more active and fulfilling lives.
Management of chronic illness is a complicated and time-consuming process, yet it is necessary that patients with chronic diseases manage a broad array of essential factors leading to their health. For example, individuals who have diabetes can provide more than 90% of their care. The assumption for long is that the chronically ill should be recipients of help to make their illnesses in an efficient way as possible. Developers of a program that provides self-management support did it out of recognition that it was necessary to create a new model of treating chronic illness.
Patient self-management now is a systematic provision of supportive interventions and education by healthcare staff to increase the confidence and skills in the management of the health problems. It includes regular assessment of the progress, setting goals and problem fixing support. Self-management programs are a way of reducing costly health crisis and improve outcome for patients with chronic illnesses. Some of the beneficiaries are those who are suffering from these chronic diseases:
- Cardiovascular disease
- Asthma
- Diabetes
- Depression
- Migraines
- Heart failure
Role of Technology in Patient Self-Management
Technology has an essential role in patient-self-management. One way is to use mobile health apps that enable patients to use their smartphones in tracking their health. Patients can achieve this through medication adherence apps or a fitness tracker. Wearable devices such as diet trackers or fitness help patients to maintain their overall health.
Patient portals also help in patient-self-management by facilitating communication between the patients and their providers directly but without a need for visits. Doctors can use the information on the regular direct messages to define the appropriate medication, coordinate care and send reminders of treatment plans.
Patient-self-management allows collaborative care between the medical teams, patients, and families for better outcomes.