Industry professionals, government officials, and the general public often agree that the modern healthcare system is in need of an overhaul. With organizations concerned with the long-term care of patients, new strategies, practices, and organizational tools must be developed to optimize the current healthcare system. Recent literature suggests that patient participation may be the ideal solution, as patients and caregivers who are more actively involved in their healthcare experience better outcomes. Promoting Patient Engagement and Participation for Effective Healthcare Reform outlines models that can be used to harness the power of patient involvement as a way to instill change in the healthcare industry. This book features a convergence of healthcare professionals and scholars providing insights into the best practices of interventions and reform as well as practical applications to foster patient engagement and participation. It is a useful reference source for healthcare providers, students and professionals in the fields of nursing, therapy, and public health, as well as managers and policy makers.
Guendalina Graffigna received a PhD in Social Psychology at Catholic University of the Sacred Hearth of Milan (Italy) where she actually is Associate Professor. At the same University she teaches Qualitative Methodology, she is Associate Director for the II level Master Degree in Qualitative Methods applied to Social and Marketing Research and she is member of the Scientific Committee for the PhD School in Psychology. Guendalina is also editorial manager for the Journal Micro & Macro Marketing. Before her actual appointments, Guendalina has been a Post Doc fellow (A.A. 2007-2008) and visiting professor in Qualitative Methods (A.A. 2008-2009) at the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology, University of Alberta, with which she still collaborate for several research and teaching initiatives. Beside her academic achievements, Guendalina acts as qualitative scientific advisor at GfK-Eurisko in Milan where she is an online qualitative research specialist and she is Director the Study and Training Centre of ASSIRM (Italian Association of Marketing Research Institutes). In July 2012 Guendalina was awarded with the prize of Qualitative Health Research Leadership 2012 from the Global Congress for Qualitative Health Research Committee. Her research and scientific activities are mainly devoted to patient engagement in health and wellbeing, healthcare organization innovation and digital health. She has spent the last 10 years of activity in constructing a bridges between scientific/academic knowledge and professional practice, in the particularly sectors of consumer and health research. At present she is coordinating and intra and inter university reflection for contributing to priorities and policies discussions at the European Level on patient health engagement.
