Re-thinking Models of Patient Empowerment

The empowerment of citizens in relation to personal healthcare management includes consideration of a multi-faceted collection of elements. Simplistic forms of understanding which link empowerment to access provide limited acknowledgement of the requirement to facilitate a greater sense of health ownership in patients and collaborative working practices in practitioners. More complex attitudes to the delivery of empowered patients encompassing knowledge development, technological awareness and partnership approaches to healthcare delivery are steps in the right direction, but strain to fit currently emerging ideas around patient centered care. This paper posits that existing frameworks aimed at empowering patients for a patient centered ehealth system are insufficiently presented. The frameworks, which are mostly premised on an inequitable focus, fail to factor in the invaluableness of holism and technological innovation. Through a review of existing frameworks and an articulation of patient demands, weaknesses in current structures to support empowerment are explored, and key constituents of a framework for patient empowerment are determined. Consequently, the paper articulates a model focused around delivering an empowered patient in the 21(st) century healthcare system.