Here to Stay What Health Care Leaders Say About Patient Engagement

Advances in medicine promise better health outcomes while simultaneously conferringadditional responsibilities on patients and caregivers. New surgical procedures mean we come home from the hospital quicker but sicker and must attend to symptom management, medications, wound care, rehabilitation, and mobility, all of which were previously performed by professionals. Similarly, new medications mean that those of us with chronic conditions like HIV, cancer, and transplants can live long and well if we can accommodate the complex drug regimens and lifestyle changes necessary to make them work. Many of us are unprepared to take on what is now required of us to benefit from our health care. Some of us don’t want to and others have no choice in the matter; we are too ill or impaired or isolated to act on our own behalf. These and other new responsibilities make our participation in our care increasingly central to individual and population outcomes.