Empowering the Chronically Ill

As Laffrey (1995) noted, health care professionals cannot empower clients; empowering must come from clients themselves. What professionals can do is remove obstacles and facilitate opportunities for clients to empower themselves. Eighty percent of people in Ontario over the age of forty five suffer with some type of chronic condition; of those seventy percent suffer from two or more chronic conditions. Chronic diseases are accountable for an estimated thirty three percent of our health care costs (Ontario Telehomecare Network). Because of the rapid aging of the population and the greater longevity of persons with many chronic conditions the number of persons with chronic illness is at a astonishing high (Wagner).The government has initiated several different projects to help the chronically ill manage at home. These projects enable people with chronic illness to live independently, but is also cuts down on the cost of health care. There are five particular programs that I believe have decreased the amount of hospital admissions, and emergency room visits and they are: Telehealth, Telehomecare, Telemedicine, e-Health, and Electronic Health records.

• Telemedicine allows patients with chronic illnesses to receive care in a home or community setting by being able to communicate with their health care professionals via teleconferencing, and provides support for the patient (What We Do, 2008).


• E-health gives patient and health care provider the technology to educate, support, and detect any health changes. E-health has many great programs it helps prevent duplication of services and allows patient and the provider access to health information (E-Health Technologies and Canada).


• Electronic Health Records are records that are electronically stored by health care professionals; they can be accessed by the patient or anyone who has permission to do so (Government of Canada).


• Telehealth is a number that anyone can call twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for advice from a registered nurse (Public Information-Telehealth Ontario, 2006).


• Telehomecare gives the patient the support and information needed to be able to manage their activities of daily living (Ontario Telehomecare Network).

Not only has technology increased delivery of services but it has substantially increased the quality of life in clients who use the services all around the world enabling them to live at home independently.