For the Many, Not the Few: Patient Empowerment

Denis Horgan; Geoffrey Henning; Ian Banks; Tom van der Wal; Stanimir Hasurdjiev; Jana Pelouchova

doi:10.1159/000481128

For the Many, Not the Few: Patient Empowerment

Biomed Hub. 2017 Nov 21;2(Suppl 1):37-40. doi: 10.1159/000481128. eCollection 2017 Nov-Dec.

Authors

Denis Horgan¹, Geoffrey Henning², Ian Banks³, Tom van der Wal⁴, Stanimir Hasurdjiev⁵, Jana Pelouchova⁴

Affiliations

¹ European Alliance for Personalised Medicine, Brussels, Belgium.
² European Alliance for EuropaColon, Brussels, Belgium.
³ European Men's Health Forum, Brussels, Belgium.
⁴ European Cancer Patient Coalition, Brussels, Belgium.
⁵ Bulgarian National Patients' Organisation, Sofia, Bulgaria.

Abstract

Today's patients are more knowledgable than ever before and should be placed at the centre of their own healthcare decisions. Empowering the patient is, and always will be, a fundamental pillar of personalised medicine. Front-line healthcare professionals cannot treat a patient properly without taking into account his or her perceptions of value. They cannot treat a patient properly without taking into account that patient's lifestyle and, of course, they cannot treat a patient properly without creating equal access across the EU to the best possible treatments available. The authors of this article examine ways to enhance the empowerment of Europe's patients.

Keywords: Consensus; Decision; Empowerment; Equality; Genetics; Involvement; Participation; Patient; Physicians; Understanding.