Patient Roles in Engagement-Capable Environments: Multiple Perspectives

Engagement-capable environments have well-defined roles for patients. These roles are often described in terms of their functional aspects. In this paper, we provide a complementary way of thinking about patient roles: an interactionist perspective. For interactionists, roles evolve through social interactions and contextual demands that shape how the work is performed. Drawing from a case example at Health Standards Organization (HSO), we demonstrate the need for engagement leaders to attend to functional descriptions of patient roles and their interactive possibilities. Finally, we argue for the connection between multiple patient roles and engagement-capable environments.