Resources and Competences required at the Institutional Level for a Patient – Healthcare Professional Partnership

Societal changes have catalyzed the perception of health as a personal responsibility, with
social studies showing a behavioral trend where patients are increasingly seeking health
information. This has given rise to patients who are active players in their care, and
participate in decision-making. Central to these changes, are patients and healthcare
professionals’, whose backgrounds and experiences reflect both cultural factors that
influence health decisions, and a power shift from professional dominance to a more
equitable partnership style. Our study aims to determine resources and competences
required at the institutional level to implementing a partnership
Semi-structured focus groups with 20 chronic disease patients and interviews with 15
healthcare professionals were conducted. Thematic content analysis was performed with
NVivo 12 to categorize verbatim. Items were grouped into dimensions, and themes common
to both parties were grouped together.
Three major areas emerged: 1) Training to develop a partnership culture - Training
healthcare professionals in patient psychology, developing therapeutic education programs
for patients and enriching available information with patients’ experiential knowledge. 2)
Creation of information / support centers for: Interdisciplinary meetings, facilitating the
provision of structured, verified and pertinent information and providing administrative aid to
patients. 3) Development of e-health solutions to: Provide information 24/7; facilitate
collaborative content creation by healthcare professionals, patients and researchers, and for
sharing and updating patient files among professionals.
Our findings will help design, implement, monitor and evaluate suitable actions, and help
promote sustainable forms of expertise – inclusion of experiential knowledge and resource
patients within the healthcare team