In medicine, patient journey is a general term, and often doctors are seen communicating with each other and inquiring about it. Other than that, when a patient is either referred to a new doctor or shifted to a new hospital, the concerned staff is interested in knowing the patient’s journey. In short, if the patient doesn’t have details about it so the doctors and hospitals can do very little to support and assist the patient with what he/she is going through. This article will shed light on this term and why reminder service is crucial.
What is a patient journey?
A patient journey is a vast term that refers to a complete sequence of events being mentioned. It primarily states how a patient’s experience has been when they visited a healthcare institute. It contains the patient’s entire history as in when a specific disease was diagnosed, which doctor dealt with the problem, what medications suggested, did they prove to be helpful, and what is the patient’s condition now. Other than that, it contains details of the date and time of check-ups and recall appointments.
What’s the significance of a patient’s journey?
A patient’s journey must be known for the following reasons for both the patient and doctor to benefitted.
To prevent prescribing the wrong medication
When a patient’s journey is unknown so a doctor may unintentionally prescribe the wrong medication, this is to say that a doctor may be unaware of any elements or food items that the patient is allergic to. Due to this, the patient’s health may deteriorate instead of getting better. Hence, it is always a good idea to look at the patient’s journey to create ease not only for the patient but also for the doctors.
Prescribing the same medicine again
Many seniors take multiple drugs, which can lead to side effects like confusion, lightheadedness and difficulty sleeping. Doctors who specialize in the care of the elderly often recommend carefully reducing the medication load.
When a patient’s history is unknown, a doctor may suggest the same medicine to the patient, which didn’t work. It is rare, but it is still possible as some patients don’t have medicinal knowledge and may even forget medications that they once consumed. This step will result in the doctor wondering why the medicine didn’t work. Also, time is wasted this way by the patient and the doctor. This time could have been utilized on fruitful means if the reminder service was available.
Preventing the doctor’s time to be wasted
Often, when a patient’s journey is unknown, a doctor has to spend quite a lot of time inquiring about what the patient had been going through in the past few years. This is a very time-consuming process that requires a doctor to be fully focused and ensure that he/she asks the right questions.
In a nutshell, a patient’s well-being should be taken extremely seriously. Hence, it is vital to keep track of a patient’s journey. This step will prevent many blunders from happening, such as prescribing the wrong medicine, prescribing the same treatment again, which will ultimately lead to both parties being disturbed. Thus, the health care institutions will become a better place.