AETCOM 1.

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What Does It Mean To Be a
Patient?
 PATIENT
• Patient: A person under health care. The person may be
waiting for this care or may be receiving it or may have
already received it. There is considerable lack of agreement
about the precise meaning of the term "patient."
• It is diversely defined as, for examples:
• A person who requires medical care.
• A person receiving medical or dental
care or treatment.
• A person under a physician's care for a
particular disease or condition.
• A person who is waiting for or
undergoing medical treatment and care
• An individual who is receiving needed professional services that are
directed by a licensed practitioner of the healing arts toward
maintenance, improvement or protection of health or lessening of
illness, disability or pain. (US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services)
• From the Latin verb "patior" meaning "to suffer" both in the sense of
feeling pain and in the sense of forbearance. Thus, the two uses of
the word "patient" -- as a noun denoting "someone who suffers" and
as an adjective meaning "to bear with forbearance" -- stem from the
same origin.
 PATIENT’S EXPECTATION
• Good Medical Care • Cleanliness
• Good Nursing Care • Good Coordination
• Less Waiting Time • Cooperation among the Staff
• Excellent Hospitality • Discipline
• Personal Attention • Communication & Information
• Courteous Behavior • Transparency in charges and
• Affordable Charges procedures
 PATIENT’S RIGHTS

• A patient’s bill of rights is a list of guarantees for those receiving

medical care.
• It may take the form of a law or a non-binding declaration.
• Guarantees patient’s information, fair treatment and autonomy over
medical decisions, among other rights.
• Under the direction of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
(MOHFW), India's National Human Rights Commission drafted a
Charter of Patients' Rights in 2018.
• The Charter draws upon different provisions relevant to patients'
rights that were previously scattered across the Constitution of India,
the Drugs and Cosmetic Act of 1940, the Clinical Establishment Act of
2010, and various judgments by the Supreme Court of India, among
other sources.
• The Charter aims to:
1. Provide a reference for State Governments to enact or modify
existing regulation.
2. Provide a framework of healthcare standards for service providers.
3. And, raise awareness among patients about their rights.
• Right to information: Every patient has the right to know what is the
illness that they are suffering, its causes, the status of the diagnosis
(provisional or confirmed), expected costs of treatment.
• Furthermore, service providers should communicate this in a manner
that is understandable for the patient.
• Right to records and reports: The patient has the right to access
his/her medical records and investigation reports.
• Service providers should make these available upon the patients’
request with or without payment (payment of photocopies)
• Right to emergency care: Public and private hospitals have an
obligation to provide emergency medical care regardless of the
patients' capacity to pay for the services.
• Right to informed consent: Patients have the right to be asked for
their informed consent before submitting to potentially hazardous
treatment.
• Physicians should clearly explain the risks from receiving the
treatment and only administer the treatment after getting explicit
written consent from the patient.
• Right to confidentiality, human dignity and privacy: Doctors should
observe strict confidentiality of a patient's condition, with the only
exception of potential threats to public health.
• In case of a physical inspection by a male doctor on a female patient,
the latter has the right to have a female person present throughout
the procedure.
• Hospitals also have an obligation to secure patient information from
any external threats.
• Right to second opinion: Patients are entitled to seek a second
opinion and hospitals should facilitate any information or records that
the patient requires to do so.
• Right to transparency in rates, and care according to prescribed
rates wherever relevant: Hospitals should display the rates that they
charge in a visible manner and patients should receive an itemized bill
when payment is required.
• Essential medicines, devices and implants should comply with rates
established by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA).
• Right to non-discrimination: Service providers cannot deny treatment
on the basis of gender, caste, religion, age, sexual orientation or social
origins.
• Additionally, it is against the Charter to deny treatment on the basis
of a patients' health condition, including HIV status.
• Right to safety and quality care according to standards: Hospitals
must ensure a hygienic and sanitized environment to provide their
services.

• Right to choose alternative treatment options if available: Patients

have the right to consider treatment alternatives and even refuse
treatment.
• Right to choose source for obtaining medicines or tests: Any
registered pharmacy and laboratory is eligible to provide patients
with goods and services they require.

• Right to proper referral and transfer, which is free from perverse

commercial influences: In case of transfers or referrals, the patient
has the right to an explanation that justifies the transfer, as well as
confirmation from the hospital receiving the patient about their
acceptance of the transfer.
• Right to protection for patients involved in clinical trials: Clinical
trials should comply with all the standards and protocols under the
Directorate General of Health Services.

• Right to protection of participants involved in biomedical and health

research: Studies involving patients should follow the National Ethical
Guidelines for Biomedical and Health Research Involving Human
Participants.
• Right to take discharge of patient or receive body of deceased from
hospital: Patients have the right to be discharged and may not be
detained at a health service provider facility because of procedural
reasons such as payment disputes.
• Right to Patient Education: In addition to information about their
condition, patients have the right to know about public health
services such as insurance schemes and charitable hospitals.
• Right to be heard and seek redressal: Patients have the right to
provide feedback and comments to their health service providers and
file complaints as required. They additionally have the right to
redressal in cases where any of their rights are violated.
 PATIENT’S RESPONSIBILITIES
• To faithfully undergo the agreed therapy.
• To follow the doctor's instructions diligently.
• To take necessary preventive measures in case of infectious diseases
as per the doctor's instructions.
• To be aware that doctors and nurses are also human beings and are
amenable to mistakes and lapses.
• To make the payment for the treatment, wherever applicable, to the
doctors/hospital promptly.
• To respect the autonomy of the doctors and nurses.
• To treat doctors and nurses with respect.
• To be punctual to attend the clinics/hospital/dispensary for the
treatment at the given time.
• To preserve all the records of one’s illness.
• To keep the doctor informed if the patient wants to change the
hospital/doctor.
 EMPOWERED PATIENT
• A process through which people gain greater control over decisions
and actions affecting their health.
• Use of technology that facilitates increased patient access to
information via the internet, peer to peer sharing, consumer health
devices and mobile apps.
 COMPONENTS OF EMPOWERMENT
• Information
• Patient makes the best decision when armed with the right
information
• Access to the right information, at the right time, delivered in the
right way, leads to an increase in a patient’s desire and ability to
take a more active role in decision making.
• Transparent communication and access to a patient’s own medical
records.
• Health Literacy
• The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain,
process and understand basic health information and services
needed to make appropriate health decisions.
• Education on how, what, why, where and when in relation to a
condition or medication should be talked through fully.
• Digital literacy
• The ability to find, evaluate, utilize, share and create content using
information technologies and internet.
• Self-efficacy
• Belief in your ability to effect change in outcomes so that you can
achieve your personal health goals.
• Developing a sense of personal control over your health is in itself
empowering.
• Feel confident to ask questions of the healthcare professionals
providing their care.
• Mutual respect
• Healthcare professional is the most important contact point for
the patient.
• Partnership of equals.
• Mutual respect for what each person knows and being allowed to
make informed choices, not about command and control.
• Partnership approach that seeks to balance clinician's expertise
and control
• Healthcare professionals are expert in knowledge and patients in
experience.
• Sharing both knowledge and experience to set goal and learn from
each other.
• Shared decision making
• Conversation that happens between a patient and clinician to
reach a healthcare choice together.
• Clinician provides current, evidence-based information about
treatment options, describing their risks and benefits and the
patient expresses his or her preferences and values.
 BARRIERS
• Lack of adequate time during the doctor’s visit, language barriers,
technology barriers, generation gaps and cultural gaps.
• Build a good relationship
CONSUMER PROTECTION
ACT
 EMPATHY
• Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is
experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the
capacity to place oneself in another's position.
• Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of emotional states.
• Types of empathy include cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and
somatic empathy.
• Affective Empathy:(Emotional Empathy)
• The capacity to respond with an appropriate emotion to another's
mental states. Our ability to empathize emotionally is based on
emotional contagion: being affected by another's emotional state.
• Affective empathy can be subdivided into the following scales:
• Empathic concern: sympathy and compassion for others in response
to their suffering.
• Personal distress: Self-centered feelings of discomfort and anxiety in
response to another’s suffering.
• There is no consensus regarding whether personal distress is a basic
form of empathy or instead does not constitute empathy.
• Infants respond to the distress of others by getting distressed
themselves; only when they are 2 years old do, they start to respond
in other-oriented ways, trying to help, comfort and share.
• Cognitive empathy:
• The capacity to understand another's perspective or mental state.
• Affective and cognitive empathy are also independent from one
another; someone who strongly empathizes emotionally is not
necessarily good in understanding another’s perspective.
• Cognitive empathy can be subdivided into the following scales:
• Perspective-taking: the tendency to spontaneously adopt others'
psychological perspectives.
• Fantasy: the tendency to identify with fictional characters.
• Tactical (or "strategic") empathy: the deliberate use of perspective-
taking to achieve certain desired ends.
 CLINICAL EMPATHY
• The act of correctly acknowledging the emotional state of another
without experiencing that state oneself.
• In other words, clinical empathy is an intellectual understanding of
the emotions of others.
• To further clarify, here are definitions of compassion and sympathy:
• Compassion is closer to empathy than sympathy is, but they are still
quite different. Derived from Latin, compassion means “to suffer
with.” Compassion usually involves a desire or drive to alleviate the
suffering of the other person. However, the intellectual understanding
of the other person’s emotions may be missing with compassion.
• Sympathy, on the other hand, is an emotional response to the
suffering of another person. It is when you realize and understand
that something bad has happened to someone else and you imagine
that pain. Unlike with empathy, you don’t actually feel that pain or
even try to understand how it feels. You might feel sad and you may
feel concern or tenderness for the person, but you remain detached
both intellectually and emotionally.
• Empathy is unique in combining the intellectual perspective with
emotional understanding. Compassion and sympathy are reactive
responses while empathy is a skill that can be learned and developed.
 DEFINITION OF
PATIENT-PERCEIVED EMPATHY
• One definition of the patient’s perception of physician empathy is his
or her feelings of being understood and accepted by the physician.
• Acceptance consists in turn of two components:
• Cognitive and Affective.
• The cognitive aspect of physician empathy is defined as the
physician’s ability to accurately apprehend the mental state of his or
her patients (the ability to take another person’s point of view) and to
effectively communicate this perspective back to the patients.
• The affective aspect of physician empathy is defined as the physician’s
ability to respond to and improve his or her patients’ emotional state.
 Benefits of Empathy
• It is more than a clinical diagnosis and treatment.
• Empathy encompasses a connection and an understanding that
includes the mind, body, and soul.
• Expressing empathy is highly effective and powerful, which builds
patient trust, calms anxiety, and improves health outcomes.
• Better patient outcome:
• A number of studies have shown that patients have better outcomes when
they are treated by physicians with a higher degree of empathy.
• Better patient compliance:
• Perhaps a major reason for better patient outcomes is the higher
rate of patient compliance when they are treated empathetically.
• Feeling seen and heard makes patients more likely to listen to and
follow the recommended course of action.
• When patients are treated with empathy, trust builds. This trust
makes patients more likely to follow provider recommendations,
to take medications as prescribed, and to make positive lifestyle
changes.
• This also means better patient or customer retention. When there
is trust, the patient is far less likely to turn elsewhere for their
healthcare needs.
• Better Patient Satisfaction:
• When healthcare customers are treated empathetically, they tend
to be happier.
• Empathy in healthcare can even potentially leave a patient feeling
satisfied after what would typically be a stressful experience, like a
call with a billing department or an insurance company about a
medical bill. Being sick can be a dehumanizing experience.
• An empathetic experience can be humanizing, and this shift tends
to leave the patient happier. Patient satisfaction in healthcare is a
major problem at present.
• Better communication:
• Empathy is a kind of nonverbal communication and its presence
automatically improves communication.
• Empathy can help deepen understanding of complex topics, both
because an empathetic explainer will notice when a point isn’t
getting through and will react accordingly, and because a patient
or customer may feel less hesitant about asking questions.
• Poor physician-patient communication is cited as a contributing
factor in at least 40% of malpractice suits, according to the Wall
Street Journal. Closing the communication gap would go a long
way.
• Improved perception:
• Empathy in healthcare can help boost how well a doctor is perceived in the
mind of a patient. Research has shown that being treated empathically leads
to “tangible increases in trust.”
• Being seen as trustworthy is a primary goal for most healthcare professionals
and empathy is one of the fastest ways to get there. Perception is another big
problem in healthcare right now.
• The Prophet survey found that nearly half of respondents believe the
healthcare system is more concerned about money than people’s well-being.
To change this perception, empathy is key.
• Attracting and retaining better employees:
• A study from Businessolver found that:
• 40% of respondents would work longer hours for a more
empathetic employer
• 56% of respondents would stay in their jobs if they felt valued, and
• 64% would be willing to work for less pay for a more empathetic
employer.
• Growth and higher earnings: