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Welcome to Healthcare Redefined: Advocating for Aging Adults and Their Families, where we empower families to navigate the complexities of aging and healthcare. Presented by Your Nurse Advocate Consulting, we share real stories, expert advice, and practical tools to help you and your loved ones confidently navigate aging with dignity.
We explore topics like creating collaborative care plans, demystifying Medicare, handling healthcare crises, and preparing for the future. Join us as we transform uncertainty into understanding.
Pam Dunwald: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Healthcare Redefined: Advocating for Aging Adults and Their Families. This is our episode number two, and hi, I'm Pam Dunwald.
Linda Kritikos: [00:00:08] Hi. And I'm Linda Kritikos. We're both registered nurses and board-certified patient advocates who own and operate Your Nurse Advocate Consulting. It's great to have you with us for our second episode.
Pam Dunwald: [00:00:20] Today, we're pulling back the curtain on what it's really like to work with a nurse patient advocate. If you've ever wondered how an advocate can help your family or what the process looks like, this episode is for you.
Linda Kritikos: [00:00:32] We get this question a lot. What is a nurse advocate? What exactly do you do? A nurse advocate is truly your guide. We're your interpreter, we're your partner in navigating the healthcare system, but we're very different than a case manager at hospitals or at the insurance companies. We work very independently, but for you, not for a system.
Pam Dunwald: [00:00:55] Let's start with our first step. We have the free 30-minute consultation. This is a no-pressure, confidential conversation where we get to know you, your loved one, your goals, and your current situation. We'll answer your questions and help you decide if advocacy is right for your family. You will walk away with at least two action items that you can take action on right away. So after that consultation call, if you choose to move forward with an advocate, we begin with a thorough assessment using the four M's. It's a framework. It means what matters most to you as the individual, as the client. What are your medications, mentation, what exactly is going on, and mobility? This helps us understand you as a whole person, not just your diagnoses.
Linda Kritikos: [00:01:44] You know, we'll talk with your loved one and you, review your medications, discuss what's important to them, and look at how they're functioning day-to-day. This assessment is the foundation for personalized care planning.
Pam Dunwald: [00:01:56] And then from there we work together to identify your needs, whether it's coordinating appointments for you, managing your medications, instructing you on your medications, advocating at doctor's visits through telehealth or FaceTime or in person, or simply providing education and support.
Linda Kritikos: [00:02:15] You know, one thing that does, you know, separate us and sets us apart from others is our independence. We're not tied to a hospital, clinic, or insurance company. Our only priority is you and your family's best interests. Because of our independence, we are able to put a person-centered plan of care in place that meets your needs.
Pam Dunwald: [00:02:36] So what this really means is that we can be honest, transparent, very thorough, and detailed in our work with you, and creative in our approach. We're not limited by institutional policies or insurance restrictions. We're here truly to empower you and make sure nothing gets missed.
Linda Kritikos: [00:02:56] So what's the impact of working with a nurse patient advocate? You know, research shows that families who use independent advocates experience one, fewer hospitalization readmissions, which is returning to the hospital 30 days or even more from your discharge. And so some studies show reduction of up to 30% of readmissions to the hospital. Number two, improve medication safety with fewer errors. Three, higher satisfaction with care, especially with communication. And four, better health outcomes and reduced stress for family caregivers. And that's really important.
Pam Dunwald: [00:03:34] Yes, it really is important. And there are several studies that actually speak to this. And reports from the 2024 areas in different local and regional agencies that highlight the positive outcomes of using advocates to navigate our healthcare system. And I'm just going to read a couple of them with some resources, so this is directly from their resources. The 2024 Patient Advocate Foundation Annual Impact Report found that patients who work with advocates experienced significant improvements in care coordination, reduced delays in treatment, and higher satisfaction with their overall healthcare experience. And this is from Patient Advocate Foundation 2024 Annual Impact Report. The second one is a 2024 report from the President's Cancer Panel, emphasizing that patient navigation programs with advocates led to improved health outcomes, faster treatment initiation, and fewer missed or delayed appointments, particularly for older adults and underserved populations. The source is The President's Cancer Panel 2024 report.
Linda Kritikos: [00:04:44] Recent studies published in 2024 indicate that care navigation, including nurse advocates, can improve patient quality of life scores, increase treatment adherence, and reduce hospital readmissions by up to 30%, as Pam has just alluded to. The source is PMC 11526257 2024.
Pam Dunwald: [00:05:05] Online patient navigation interventions in 2024 demonstrated excellent potential for improving patient knowledge, transition readiness, self-efficacy, and the use of healthcare services. And the source is the JMIR Medical Informatics 2024. These findings truly reinforce that having an independent nurse advocate leads to better healthcare outcomes, greater patient confidence and satisfaction, and more efficient care, especially during transitions or when the system is very confusing and overwhelming. You know, it's not just about avoiding problems, it's about having the peace of mind knowing you have an expert in your corner.
Linda Kritikos: [00:05:49] So I'd like to share a little story based on what Pam and I were just talking about. I had a male client who lived in one of the rural areas of Wisconsin. And he lived alone. His stepdaughter lived across the pond, as I would say, in England. She was very close to her stepdad. But of course, because of where she lived, she couldn't be with her stepdad. When he got ill with respiratory illness and other lung infections, and became weaker and unable to care for himself, she reached out to me as an advocate to see if there was any possibility that I could help him and keep her informed of his care, so she would know if, as the end came near, or as he got worse, if she should jump on a plane and come down here to see him. So we put together a plan. I kept her in the loop, actually, we had phone conversations every couple of weeks to England and it was very fruitful. I learned a lot from her about her stepdad because he was a very poor historian because of his weakness and his debility, he really couldn't provide me with a lot of information. But even though she was across the pond, as I would say, she was a wealth of knowledge in regards to her stepdad, and she was able to put the pieces together for me so I could develop a beautiful plan for him to help him stay in his home, which is where he wanted to be, get the care he needed at the right time with the caregiving services he needed, and make sure that he met all of his doctor appointments. Her and I were together on the phone at his doctor appointments, and he also enjoyed that because then she was made aware of everything that he was going through and the medications, so that when she called him on her weekly calls, she could remind him about the medications he needed, about the appointments he needed to keep. So she felt a lot closer to him, even though she was miles and miles away from him. And this is how I helped advocate for him and keep them together. As the story goes, he did get a lot worse. I did have to move him into hospice after talking with her, and we both agreed that hospice was something that was important for her to provide to him in his end stages. I didn't know this, but she made me, she informed me that hospice across the pond was something that was revered. That was something that was really important at the end of life, and she was very familiar with it and really wanted to make sure that her stepdad, her dad, received the best hospice care possible. So we both interviewed the hospices together. We both, I helped her choose the hospice by just giving her some action ideas to follow through on. But at the end of the day, the decision was hers on which hospice to use, the type of care he was to receive. I was only there to help facilitate and coordinate, and make sure that the care was provided in the way that she and he wanted it to be provided through the end of time, or his end of time. And he died very peacefully in his home. His daughter did fly in from across the pond to spend her last days with him, and it was a very touching and very strong emotional bond that they shared. And I think the advocacy part of it really helped solidify his needs. And she was very grateful because they both received what they needed. That was the benefit of having advocacy in the corner, because she felt that she made a comment stating that I don't think I could have done this without the help, because I'm so far away. I didn't really know what he needed. I didn't know how I could help him. So she was very thankful and grateful that I was able to help, and so was I. I was very humbled by the experience, and it was a privilege to be that advocate, you know, for him at his last journey of life.
Pam Dunwald: [00:05:49] You know, this is Pam, and I have another quick story, too, about one of our clients. And this was regarding something that's simple, that turned into a disaster. We had a client of ours who slipped and fell in the shower and fractured her ankle. Ended up in the hospital, supposedly just to have her ankle fracture repaired in surgery, by the orthopedic surgeon, and by day three, she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She ended up in intensive care with adult respiratory distress syndrome. She was ventilated, she was on a breathing tube, she was on a respirator in ICU for a few days, and ended up spending 29 days in the hospital. The family was extremely burned out. The son lives out of state on the West Coast, and they live here in the Midwest, and it was very much a strain on the family. She had many different specialists seeing her in the hospital, especially with her respiratory complications. And one of the problems that we saw right away is that each specialist stayed in their lane. They only looked at what they were treating for her, no one was looking at the big picture. They were not paying attention to what her previous diagnoses were and how that was impacting her hospitalization. They neglected that. And each specialist was just focused on theirs, and she had a boot, for example, she had a boot on her ankle. And when she was in intensive care, they kept removing the boot. The orthopedic surgeon kept saying, you need to keep the boot on her, she's going to get foot drop. And they wanted to take the boot off because she started to get a little pressure sores, so there's a lot of different things going on. And we finally had to put a sign on the door that says, please do not remove the boot without talking with orthopedics. And she ended up having to go to a nursing home. So we helped coordinate, we helped select a nursing home that we thought would best fit their needs. We coordinated home health coming home. She had wound care, she had physical therapy, she had occupational therapy. So we helped to make the process seamless and again helped to give the son and the spouse the peace of mind knowing that they didn't have to worry about whether they were making the right decisions based on what they could understand. They had me to be able to interpret the medical jargon and to be able to allow them to understand their treatment options and make an informed decision. So in this case, again, we were speaking on a daily basis. They would call me when the when the hospitalist or when the specialists were making rounds in the room, I would participate in that conversation, ask questions, make sure that everybody was being on the same page, and literally helping to keep all the balls in the air at the same time. So this is just another example about how we can help as patient advocates. You know, if you're curious about working with a nurse advocate, we invite you to schedule, you know, for our free 30-minute consultation. We'll put that link for you in the show notes. There's no obligation, just a chance to explore your options and get support.
Linda Kritikos: [00:13:00] You know, Pam, I was just thinking, and I want to make sure that our audience understands that these two stories that we gave truly speak to our work as interpreters of medical information, communicators of needs, because sometimes people don't know what they don't know, and they don't know what to ask. So it takes someone who's kind of looking from the outside in to actually help understand the language.
Pam Dunwald: [00:13:28] And be able to read between the lines.
Linda Kritikos: [00:13:30] Exactly, exactly. So please visit us at our website at YourNurseAdvocateConsulting.com or email us at info@YourNurseAdvocateConsulting.com. We're here to help, and we also would love any input that you have regarding our stories and regarding any questions you have or anything that you would like to hear from us in regards to new information or topics that you'd like us to investigate and discuss.
Pam Dunwald: [00:13:58] You know, thank you again for listening to Healthcare Redefined. In this week's show notes, we're going to share our free guide for you, 11 Signs Your Aging Parents May Need Help in the Home. And if you found value in today's episode, please subscribe, share, and leave us a review.
Linda Kritikos: [00:14:14] And remember, you don't have to do this alone and face our healthcare system alone. We're here to walk this journey with you from beginning to end.
Pam Dunwald: [00:14:23] Thank you. We'll see you soon.