Nurses can play the role of mediators between doctors and patients, where the latter complains of being neglected in one way or another. For instance, a nurse must reach the medical facility or doctor and alert them if a patient protests an incorrect diagnosis, unreliable accommodation, or vague self-care instructions. Patient advocacy plays a critical role in the nursing sector.

How do you advocate for a patient?

Use the following tips to push for patient advocacy.

Alert the entire team

Nurses interact with the patient the most. As a result, they’re qualified enough to communicate the patient’s desires to the entire healthcare team. For example, religious and cultural beliefs may call for procedural applications regarding daily visitations, dress, and meal planning. Your patient may have demanded that you should communicate to the rest of the team. As a nurse, you’re responsible for ensuring that everybody fulfills the patient’s requests.

Avoid family mediation

Sometimes families may make decisions that don’t align with the patient’s wishes. This could be because of misplaced thinking or neglect. In this case, your advocacy plays a considerable role n protecting the patient from distressed situations.

Display proper nursing care

Every day, you demonstrate patient advocacy examples through humane, proficient nursing care. Treating patients with respect and dignity restores their rights. Think of your patient as someone with anguish and happiness like anybody else. Ensure your patient is conversant with the happenings in the healthcare system. Let them understand that they don’t have to agree to procedures and tests until they understand them.

Assist with financial and social issues

Before the patient leaves the hospital, ensure they can find and afford all their prescriptions. Determine whether they’re able to follow all the instructions according to the doctor’s guidance.

Connect the patient with a social worker within your facility if you’re confident they can’t manage the doctor’s instructions due to homelessness or financial needs. Most of the famous medications offer support programs and cost-friendly substitutes to the original drug. Helping your patient makes way for an effective home care conversion.

Give patients self-advocacy training

While you may do everything to protect and support the patient’s rights, you won’t be with them throughout the day. The best patient advocacy strategy you can use in this case is to teach them how to advocate for themselves.

What is patient advocacy, and why is it important?

Patient advocacy is the idea of assisting patients in interacting with their healthcare professionals, allowing them (the patients) to acquire the relevant information to make healthcare-based decisions. A patient advocate can also assist patients plan doctor’s appointments and medical examinations to acquire legal, financial, or social support.

Importance of Patient Advocacy

Auditing patient support and healthcare policy roles help you understand the importance of advocacy in healthcare. Extensive advocacy seeks to transform the system, while individual-level advocacy focuses on speaking on behalf of the patient.

Extensive healthcare advocacy promotes reforms that promote the latest research while encouraging better partnerships in the healthcare sector. It also pushes for health procedures that improve accountability for various factors like economic and social circumstances that influence people’s health and poverty. As an advocate, nurses must abide by the set code of ethics. Successful advocacy supports patients in various ways like:

• Ensuring each patient gets healthcare equality
• Improving human dignity
• Reducing suffering
• What do patient advocacy groups do?

PAO (Patient advocacy organizations) offer caregiver and patient-based advocacy, education, and support services. These organizations are nonprofit groups that associate themselves with potential or medical conditions and seek to assist victims of the medical conditions. An example of patient advocacy organizations would be the American Heart Association,

American Cancer Society, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

How do patient advocates get paid?

The charges of a patient advocate vary from one state to the other based on the level of expertise. Some patient advocates offer hourly rates ranging between $100 an hour and almost $500 per hour.

The costs may be high but with an experienced patient advocate, you could save lots of dollars in medical expenses. For example, if a healthcare provider admits some circumstances in a patient’s condition, an effective patient advocate will understand them and defend the patient. The advocate takes advantage of all the healthcare policies, regulations, and rules that ordinary people may not know about.

Finally

Advocacy in the healthcare industry is critical for patient satisfaction and quality care. As a patient advocate, you should be ethical, assertive, empathetic, and persistent. Always focus on being the best advocate possible to make your patients as comfortable as possible.