Clinical Health Coach

More than 145 million people – or nearly half of all Americans – live with chronic conditions. Hospitals, clinics and providers within our communitities face the common challenge of serving and caring for an increasing number of patients with chronic conditions, many with multiple chronic conditions. Successfully managing chronic conditions is complex. Thirty to fifty percent of patients leave their provider visits without understanding their treatment plan, and hospitalized patients retain only 10 percent of their discharge teaching instructions. Better strategies of engaging and communicating with patients must be implemented to improve health outcomes. True engagement involves an important shift by healthcare providers from “teaching and telling” to “listening and engaging”. At the same time, healthcare organizations must transform to new models of care to address the current fragmentation of services and lack of care coordination. Within this new structure, there is a role for the “Clinical Health Coach(R)“.