If you are exploring a career as a patient advocate, you may wonder what it would be like to work as a patient advocate in a hospital.
Most hospitals in the United States employ patient advocates. Although nurses and most doctors would also consider themselves to be advocates for their patients, there are also advocates in hospitals who are not medical personnel, but who are available to assist patients, their families and/or caregivers with their concerns.
Hospital patient advocates may have a number of titles: patient advocate, patient representative, patient liaison, patient relations, consumer advocate, crisis resolution specialists, ombudsman and others. They most often are part of the risk management team, meaning, the group within the hospital that addresses legal, safety and consumer issues. As a hospital's patient advocate, if a patient has a concern, a complaint or a grievance during her stay in your hospital, it will be your responsibility as the hospital's representative to try to straighten it out.
According to the Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy, the national organization that represents hospital patient advocates, (and part of the American Hospital Association), there are nine aspects to a hospital advocate's job:
- Patients' Rights
- Grievance and Complaint Management
- Measuring Patient Satisfaction
- Interpersonal Communication
- Customer Service / Service Excellence
- Mediation / Conflict Resolution
- Crisis Intervention
- Data Management
- Healthcare Management
If those are skills you have, or aspects of working with patients in which you are interested, then a job as a hospital patient advocate might be a good choice for you.
To be hired as a hospital patient advocate, you'll need the following qualifications: usually an Associates or Bachelors degree, and often a Masters degree in nursing, psychology, humanities, social services, education, human relations, communication or a related field. Many hospital patient advocates begin as social workers or in clinical positions.
Important Note: Many who consider patient advocacy as a career are focused on working to improve the system for patients. While hospital patient advocacy is intended to provide solutions for patients who are having problems with their hospital stays, it should be noted that hospital patient advocates get their paychecks from the hospital, and are therefore required to make things right for the hospital first. They will work to solve problems and make things right for both parties, but their allegiance must be to their employers.
