Sunday morning that’s sipping my coffee a little longer and trying to ignore my week schedule. The latter fails pretty often. Being used to waking up 6:30 AM it’s darn difficult to stay in bed until 9 AM. Nevertheless I always try to do the most with the time given. This also on a Sunday morning when I wake up too early, last years a habit slipped in my Sunday schedules without being aware. It entails calls from fellow people with diabetes. Reason they call on Sunday to discuss their treatments? Most often the inaccessibility to suitable information on diabetes related topics.
The calls pretty often have a similar structure, something like this:
- Apologies for calling me on Sunday: often joint by sentence stating that they could not contact healthcare professionals on this topic.
- Long story with in the back the true question
- Discussion of challenge
- Closing call
(PS: In case you’re one of the frequent callers, don’t bother using another structure. I love change ;-))
In case you’re wondering what the message in this blog is, I won’t complicate it: having access to online communication and phones has not improved accessibility of healthcare systems. It made communication with healthcare professionals more accessible but not access to care which fits the needs of the patient. And care involves care related knowledge too as it is needed to make informed treatment decisions.
Those calls I receive are questions related to information which some people don’t possess but would like to have in order to make sense of their treatment. And having that information is a right up to my opinion.
Empowering patients, part of that is health literacy, will improve knowledge and in some way reduce the need from professional support. Yet with an ever-growing amount of information at the tips of our fingers (read keyboard) one challenge remains: making the reliable information easily accessible and understandable. The goal from the healthcare professional has shifted from solely information provider to (amongst other things) decision aid.
Making the good information accessible and understandable is a point where in Belgium we could improve greatly. Having had campaign’s such as “Don’t google your health” run by governmental agencies indicates to me, partly, that governments don’t like interested citizens whereas up to my opinion this should be sparked. Having citizens who want to know more and look up info is great. The government should help them in analysing and evaluating found information rather than blocking the search for info.
Building public websites with health information would be another great approach. Here when the website is strong enough it will pop-up as first search result. Maybe better than asking citizens not to google health? Studying health sciences in the Netherlands I am always amazed by the difference how the Belgian and Dutch government provide health (care) related information.
The Dutch government has a style I prefer: open and direct communication. The communication is often with images and other visual animation so it’s more easily absorbed by the receiver. Want to experience the Dutch way? Have a look here on an article written on the Fipronil crisis!
Key take-away whilst sipping your coffee? People have the right to look up health info just as other folks have a right not to look it up. A goverment should not decide what’s right to do. They should help people to find online the right info when they want to. The internet made communication in between patient and professional better but apparently not the quality of performed communication.
Accessing care is less a challenge then accessing the needed care in Belgium.
