Patient engagement is the new hard currency in health care

When understanding health as ‘‘the ability to adapt and to self-manage’’, providers must focus on the person and their families. One example of why more of the same is no longer an option is the poor average medication compliance rates in developed countries. Despite improved outcomes for adherence, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) just 50% of people adhere to their medication regimen. Improving adherence rates requests to know what patients think and how they feel before prescribing drugs to them. To truly transform health care, many stakeholders believe that the key lies in getting patients and their families more thoroughly engaged as partners in care. But for people to make choices good information is needed. Research can certainly contribute when made publicly available. In England, for example, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence studies the cost and benefit of drugs and other treatments, and make recommendations about whether these should be covered by the National Health Service. Perhaps the digital revolution will accelerate the change of the health care landscape. The patient engagement framework of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society clearly depicts this journey. Informing people is the first destination, followed by engagement, empowerment, partnering and the final destination is reached when health care providers actively support the patients’ e-community. Another forceful development is the infiltration in health care of start-ups wanting to change the health care model from hospital or provider-centric to patientcentric. The Uber model is becoming visible in health care; medical technology products, once solely focused on health care providers, are nowadays designed for patients and their caregivers. Understanding and meeting patients’ needs and preferences will become a bigger differentiator. Researchers will need to play their part. The role of patients in research ranges from a passive one (patient is a data point) to an active one (patient is a researcher). The active participation in research can lead to improvement in the credibility and the applicability of its findings. Despite the growing consensus about the role of patient involvement in research and the development of new methods, it remains unknown how to best involve patients. The International Journal of Care Coordination welcomes papers about and with patients and their families. In this issue, the perspectives of patients are presented in various papers. Chester et al. show the variability in care coordination arrangements for older people in England and discuss how the preference for intensive care coordination fits within the policy goal of maintaining frail older people in their homes. In the paper by Clark and Byfieldt, the development and testing of a care bundle to improve the quality of care for and the experiences of people imminently dying in hospitals are presented. An excellent example of a patient-led initiative is presented by Gill, the co-director of Dragon Claw: a website designed to enable better management of self-care and to reduce member isolation and stress. The final paper is a review of the book ‘Achieving Effective Integrated E-Care Beyond the Silos’ by Meyer, Müller and Kubitschke. Notwithstanding the insights about ICT as enabling factor for the coordination and integration of care, it is discussed that this book should be accompanied by a series of books in order to understand the complete puzzle. Please keep submitting your work to the International Journal of Care Coordination. Feel free to discuss how you think of us by using #IntCareCoord when Tweeting.