It is the central objective for a health care provider to offer quality and sufficient health care to all the patients at reduced costs. Health care is a primary necessity in human lives that people cannot survive without. However, health care systems are faced with tough challenges that affect the effort by practitioners to offer quality care to everyone who needs it. Over the years, new techniques and methods have been developed to improve health care in different medical settings. One of such methods is the healthcare narratives. Narratives are systems of stories that are used to showcase human identities and histories (Landry, 2017). Within the healthcare setting, the health care narrative method involves carefully designed processes and prompts that elicit the stories in the manner that results in positive impacts on health care, such as healing. When carefully used by healthcare practitioners, such narratives assist them to improve their knowledge on various issues thus enabling them to provide reliable and effective solutions (Dixon et al., 2017). They also assist patients in developing positive attitudes towards the treatment process thus enhancing quick recoveries. In that case, healthcare narratives have positive effects on the people with various health problems.
Healthcare narrative methods are known to be versatile and are highly applicable by the practitioners or caregivers while rendering care to their patients. Such methods enhance processing of emotions and thoughts related to medical experiences, pointing out the actual patterns that are responsible for impacting healthcare decisions or reflecting upon the positive and negative healthcare interactions. Narrative methods, therefore, involve reflection, articulation, listening and reflection of different medical interventions (Landry, 2017). Narratives involving positive reflections on certain clinical interventions that worked well on other patients normally tend to give hope to the patients they are directed to. Such hope has a direct impact on the patients’ healing process. In most cases, healing is a psychological thing and is well-acquired when the patients are emotionally and psychologically positive. In this case, through positive narratives, patients tend to have positive attitudes towards the treatment process thus recovering faster.
Numerous examples illustrate how positive emotions and attitudes, created through narratives, have helped improve the health of patients. In case of terminal diseases, patients’ health conditions can improve once they embrace the fact that they have a condition and start facing it positively. Narrating stories of other patients who survived with the same conditions for years and yet lived positively and normally can be of great help to such patients thus enhancing the overall outcome of the intervention (Dixon et al., 2017). It is imperative to note that people living with HIV need some encouragement so as to live positive lives and have hope in their lives. Narrative methods have been plaid a crucial role in attaining this goal.
We can do it today.
Additionally, healthcare narrative methods promote communication between healthcare practitioners and their patients. Communication is always vital in medical practices. It enables the practitioners to understand the history of the health problems they are trying to address and at the same time assist the patients to develop confidence and positive attitude towards the entire treatment process. Narratives bring people together regardless of their differences (Dixon et al., 2017). Similarly, within the medical settings, they bring patients closer to the practitioners something that facilitates quick recovery for the patients and also makes the work of the medical practitioners easier and enjoyable.
From the argument, it is clear that healthcare narratives have positive effects on the patients, especially when receiving medical care. They promote communication between the health providers and patients thus allowing them to understand the actual problem and come up with the right interventions. They also create positive emotions and attitudes in patients thus enhancing quick recovery.
- Dixon, B. E., Kasting, M. L., Wilson, S., Kulkarni, A., Zimet, G. D., & Downs, S. M. (2017). Health care providers’ perceptions of use and influence of clinical decision support reminders: qualitative study following a randomized trial to improve HPV vaccination rates. BMC medical informatics and decision making, 17(1), 119.
- Landry, B. (2017). Using Healthcare Narrative Methods to Improve Outcomes.