How patient participation can enhance recovery

with Amber Petty and Alfred Deakin Professor Mari Botti AM

How do we get patients back on their feet more quickly after surgery? It’s an important question, because patient participation in their own recovery is an essential element of high quality care. It’s just trickier to achieve in acute care settings, but fortunately there’s an app for that.

Listen to "How patient participation can enhance recovery" on Spreaker.

MyStay is a multimedia tool developed with clinicians and patients to enhance patient involvement in their own care and evaluation shows it works, with patients experiencing lower pain intensity and less time in hospital after surgery.

“We need to enhance patients’ capability to participate by providing clear, unambiguous information about how they can participate in their pain management and recovery and we need to provide opportunities to do so through effective patient and clinician interactions,” Mari says.

MyStay delivers interactive information to patients, explaining what to expect post-surgery and how patients can participate in their own care. From the first day of surgery, patients can use the program to access information about their goals for the day, and how they can manage their pain, keep safe and prepare for discharge.

“There is an expectation that health services involve consumers in their own care and recovery but it’s actually not that easy in acute care,” Mari points out.

“While it’s been a mainstay of chronic illness management that people are participants in managing their illness, in acute health we tend to do things to people, rather than with them.

“The key challenge for researchers is how to help clinicians to implement solutions within the culture of care delivery in acute care settings.”

Join Mari and Amber as they explore the complexity of pain management in acute care settings and how recovery after surgery can be enhanced through innovative technology.

Alfred Deakin Professor Mari Botti AM is Director of the Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research at Epworth HealthCare. Her research interests cross a number of clinical practice domains, with a particular focus on pain management, symptom management, quality and safety of care and clinical outcomes in acute care settings. She is lead investigator in a program of research focused on models of care delivery that encourage patient and family engagement in their care, safety and wellbeing. A key element of this work is the development of the MyStay modules. These modules are surgery-specific, multimedia, web-based modules that facilitate patient participation in their care and recovery after surgery.