Self-care is a key component of improving the health of an entire population.
Patients who practice self-care are more engaged, empowered, and satisfied, especially if they are receiving positive reinforcement and training on self-care and wellness from the same organization that cares for them when they are not well.
Patients will welcome marketing messages and invitations related to improving their health and wellness because patients feel truly cared for as “whole human beings” when they receive this kind of communication from the health system.
The health of patients depends on the health of the organization’s staff. When employees practice self-care, satisfaction increases, and presenteeism and absences decrease.
IT and the EHR can be used to track self-care and self-care outcomes as well as generate positive, supportive messaging to patients when they need a motivational boost and/or when they have achieved a wellness goal.
Self-care is an innovative concept, especially in the health system space. Combining evidence-based self-care practices with personalized medicine and genetics testing can result in an even healthier patient and community population.
Everyone can relate to and benefit from self-care! Patients, employees, healthcare plans, area employers, religious institutions, schools, and all stakeholders will experience so many powerful benefits. As a result, self-care can be used by the health system as a strategic tool to obtain support and cooperation for other strategic initiatives.
Keeping community members healthy, while necessary, is indeed a major transformative philosophy for healthcare systems. A self-care initiative is a tool for health system transformation.
Self-care training and practices facilitate behavior change. Self-care practices also provide individuals who may be challenged in expressing themselves in traditional ways with healthy alternative outlets for expression such as art, journaling, music, and dancing.
Self-care practices can be taught to physicians and other clinicians to help prevent burnout. Learning the practices will then enable the clinical team to pass them on to and reinforce the practices with patients, ultimately making the clinician’s job less stressful because patients are more compliant and satisfied.
Self-care is a useful vehicle for coordinating care and acts as a common tool throughout a patient’s continuum of care. Self-care can help make care more efficient and less costly. Everyone wins.
A System-wide Sustainable Self-Care Initiative is the perfect venue for reaching out to individuals, groups, and organizations in the community. Self-care is a common language that can be shared regardless of age, ethnicity, socio-economic class, or health status. Everyone wants to feel their best and self-care tools facilitate that process.
Research shows that structured, continuous evidence-based self-care practices reduce health care costs, improve management of chronic disease, extend life, and increase the quality of life. A Sustainable System-wide Self-Care program can be used to negotiate favorable financial outcomes for the healthcare system.
Self-care practices can be bundled into certain care episodes and can be used to decrease the cost of care, thereby increasing the margins for the healthcare system.
Self-care is a common language and a Sustainable System-wide Self-Care Initiative reaches every stakeholder with a positive message. Self-care practices can be used as a way to integrate pieces of the system that otherwise may not have seemed connected, such as a hospital-based same-day surgery unit interfacing with a newly acquired urgi-care center. Regardless of where they are in the care continuum, all patients and stakeholders can benefit from self-care skills.
