Harnessing Patient Engagement for Health System Change

This discussion paper looks at the ways patients are attempt to influence health system change through individual and collective advocacy. It considers how healthcare organizations can harness patient involvement to create systems and structures that genuinely place the patient at the centre of care.

The authors examine existing tensions between a previously physician-centred care system and the newer approach of patient-centred care. They draw on the marketing perspectives of individual complaining behaviour and dissatisfaction to understand how, within a patient-centred healthcare context, health organizations can benefit by effectively tending to this dynamic. Having established these individual level dynamics, we then investigate the broader socio-political collective dynamics that facilitate this patient-centred trend. And they present a case study of a mid-sized healthcare organization that has effectively tended to both individual and collective level issues.

This paper is written by Monica C. LaBarge, assistant professor in marketing at Smith School of Business; Jay M. Handelman, associate professor and associate dean of research and PhD/MSc programs, and Commerce '77 Fellow of Marketing; and Alex Mitchell, a PhD student at Smith School of Business.