Jan Geissler is the Founder and CEO of Patvocates, a consultancy and think tank on patient advocacy and patient engagement based in Riemerling, Germany. In an article he co-authored for the Springer Nature journal “The Patient” Geissler and his colleagues argue that meaningful patient involvement in healthcare research and publishing can bridge significant gaps between patients and healthcare professionals while deepening understanding of how treatments impact quality of life and emotional wellbeing. Their research reveals a striking disparity: despite growing interest in publications that include the “patient experience”, fewer than 1% actually include patient authors as co-contributors.
This gap represents both a missed opportunity and a call to action. By fostering genuine partnerships with patients and systematically including patient authors in academic publishing, the healthcare research community can enhance research relevance, drive greater understanding and empathy among all stakeholders, and ensure that scientific literature authentically represents the patient voice rather than merely discussing it from the outside.
The authors offer a set of 7 recommendations for how to meaningfully involve patients as co-authors in scientific publications.
Photo credit: The Patient
Read more at this link on Springer Nature
Citation
Bharadia, T., Geissler, J., Robson, R. et al. Seven Actions Towards Advancing Patient Authorship and Collaboration in Peer-Reviewed Publications. Patient 18, 403–414 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40271-025-00750-w