This is a methodology for understanding the experiences of people who access health and social care services. Research has shown that people who are active in their care and work with providers to self-manage their conditions can live healthier lives; this is possible by better understanding patients’ experiences receiving care. The Patient-Journey Maps demonstrate how the different parts of a patient’s journey or experience fit together in their context.
1. Creating Patient-centric Solutions to Healthcare Challenges
It identifies experiences that affect people’s health and the experiences between people who work with them. This work is especially challenging to understand when clinicians face complex issues, such as aging populations or multi- condition or complex medical conditions. The Patient-Journey Maps can provide a better understanding of patients’ journeys as they navigate through the system. They can be involved in developing new approaches and programs to improve care and outcomes.
2. Improving the Quality of Healthcare
Patient Journey Maps can identify and map the patient experience across a service or organization. They can be used to understand patients’ needs, expectations, and priorities in their journey with a health condition. They are also used to improve relationships between patients and providers, regardless of how complex the situation is being treated. The result is more effective communication by all involved parties, tailored care plans, and better outcomes for providers and patients.
3. Improving Coordination and Accountability of Care
It can improve the quality of services and care coordination between providers and health systems. They can identify how the various components of a patient’s journey work together to create an effective, patient-centered multi-provider service system. It helps providers view all services within the context of working together as partners to serve patients better. This is especially important in an aging population where care coordination may become more challenging.
4. Understanding the Stages of the Patient-Journey
Accessibility to the internet has improved communication with providers and improved the efficiency of patient care. With the proliferation of electronic medical records (EMR) and other patient-centered health information systems, providers can access patient data across a network of providers in a more coordinated way without spending precious time searching for the information. It can help identify how people find their way through an EMR or other information system so that they can be better understood by providers and receive improved care. This benefits patients and providers by facilitating better care coordination and diagnosis between the different resources.
5. How to Get Started with Patient-Journey Mapping
Students and faculty alike can use Patient-Journey to help identify how their research should be structured for students and for achieving professional goals. The maps can be used to develop a patient-centered perspective on research findings to receive more informed decisions about patient care. Research is influential in allowing new approaches to be developed by testing the best practices, gaining valuable insight into processes, validating the effectiveness of programs or systems, and identifying areas where further study would be helpful.
Rising complexity in healthcare investigations makes it challenging for clinicians to understand issues surrounding people with complex medical conditions. Analyzing multiple factors is challenging working with aging people with more than one disorder. Patient-Journey approaches can be used to understand the needs and concerns of patients who use many resources over a long period so that better-coordinated strategies can be developed by all involved parties to achieve better patient outcomes.
