International Council of Nurses & World Patients Alliance hold groundbreaking webinar on Patient-Centred Care & Patient Engagement
In a collaborative effort to champion patient-centric health care, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) and the World Patients Alliance (WPA) held a groundbreaking webinar on Patient-Centred Care & Patient Engagement, on 1 December 2023. This virtual gathering brought together esteemed speakers and panellists who are luminaries in the realm of health care advocacy.
The event aimed to delve into the fundamental principles of patient-centric care, emphasizing the active involvement of individuals in shaping their health care experiences. Distinguished speakers included Andrew Spiegel, WPA Chair; Dr Pamela Cipriano, ICN President; Lisa Morrise, Executive Director of Consumers Advancing Patient Safety; Hussein Jafri, WPA Executive Director, and ICN CEO, Howard Catton.
The insightful discussions were further enriched by a panel comprising experts including Erica Burton, ICN Senior Policy Advisor; Laurent Chabal, President, World Council of Enterostomal Therapists; and WPA Founding Directors, Regina Kamoga, and Penney Cowan.
Dr Pamela Cipriano spoke about the fundamental partnership between nurses and patients, emphasizing why this relationship so crucial to the achievement of Universal health Coverage.
“We know we can’t reach Universal Health Coverage unless we boost Primary Health Care Services...and who are the most important individuals in terms of delivering that care? Well, we certainly believe it is nurses.
We have many, many global health challenges, including things like mental health and the ageing of the population, that really call for us to look at our models of care and...how we are joining forces with our patients in an alliance to say what it is we need, and how we need to make changes in our health care systems to make sure they are being responsive and resilient.”
Dr Cipriano spoke about the drivers of change in today’s world, better value for care, increased demand for health services, digital disruptions, workforce shortages, and many of the other health challenges we are facing today.
“We know that nurses are central to the delivery of care in all settings...and we know nurses can do more: we can take on different roles; we can have a broader reach; we can use technology; we have advanced practice nurses that are filling the gap in many countries...so nurses in many ways, even though we have these workforce shortages, are responding and stepping up in order to provide better care, more care and be able to meet current needs.”
Dr Cipriano concluded:
“We want to work with our governments to be able to impact high level political commitments to better funding, more appropriate funding, not only of their entire health care systems but also recognizing that our workforces need to be support right now. We need to invest in nursing. We need to be able to look at what’s important to have our health systems be more resilient and we believe nurses are the critical answer as the key provider of services across all venues and settings.
Howard Catton, ICN CEO, gave the concluding remarks:
“ICN hugely values the partnership and the work that we do with the World Patients Alliance...We have a very unique and special bond... And I think that this is the time when we need to be stronger together than we have been before. We have to come together at global policy events...to speak on behalf of patients, to speak on behalf of nurses.
The point of health care is to improve the outcome of the health status...Health care is ultimately about people and issues of respect and dignity, of rights. I think through this webinar we can be sure that we are going to go forward more strongly together to deliver the types of people and person-centred health care systems that we all want to see.”
The full webinar can be viewed here.