Sarah Riggae is a researcher and educator who suffers from Parkinson’s disease,
In a recent article on her blog she defines what is meant by “patient engagement” and distinguishes between “primary” and “secondary” engagement.
Short summary:
Primary Patient Engagement focuses on individual patient empowerment in their own healthcare journey. This includes:
- Shared decision-making with providers
- Self-management of health conditions
- Active partnership in clinical encounters
- Participation in research studies
It’s essentially about patients having control and a voice in decisions that directly affect their personal health and treatment.
Secondary Patient Engagement involves patients contributing to healthcare improvements at a systems level, beyond their individual care. This includes:
- Serving on advisory boards
- Acting as patient representatives on hospital committees
- Participating as partners in research teams
- Contributing to healthcare design and evaluation
Here, patients are recognized as stakeholders with valuable experiential knowledge that can inform improvements benefiting many patients, not just themselves.
Conclusions
The author concludes that “adopting this primary/secondary framework can help clinicians and researchers to better theorize engagement and guide empirical studies, and it can help health system leaders to implement more balanced patient engagement strategies”.
Read more at this link on Sara Riggae’s blog