All of our work is guided by a set of common principles rooted in our experiences as researchers and advocates:

Empowering the Patient

For us, patient advocacy is guided by one overarching objective: providing individuals and families with the information and support they need to make informed decisions and receive the highest quality of care possible.  Patient advocacy is about providing individuals and communities with the tools they need to champion their own best interests—while finding providers, considering options, managing their care, and getting and staying as healthy as possible.

Partnership

One of the biggest obstacles individuals and caretakers confront in the health-care system is fragmentation and lack of coordination between  providers.  The time and energy required to finding the right specialists, managing information, and putting it all together to see the “big picture” can be overwhelming, not to mention the demands of assuring high quality of care in busy medical settings.  Part of a commitment to empowering the patient takes the form of partnership.  When clients ask for help, advocates can ask how they can be most effective as partners to help patients manage their case and get the support they need—whether it be finding the right specialist, improving the quality of care, researching treatment options,  finding peer support, or helping family members cope.

Complementarity and Professionalism

When compiling information and resources for clients, advocates can work to complement and support-- not replace or disrupt-- patients' relationships with licensed health-care professionals.  We do not believe advocates should give medical advice or interfere with the care provided by licensed providers.  Rather, supplementary research, support, and information services can be designed to help patients and families locate and work effectively with those providers who may best meet their unique needs.  Likewise, we believe advocates in clinical settings are best suited to provide appropriate, non-disruptive support to complement the efforts of medical staff.

Transparency and Impartiality

The number of individuals and organizations that offer health-care guidance to consumers is growing every day.  Literally hundreds of web sites, providers, advocates, and other entities offer information and recommendations concerning specific conditions, hospitals and doctors, promising therapies, advocacy strategies.  While most of these sources claim to offer accurate information, it is often difficult if not impossible for consumers to identify how complete the information is and whether commercial or financial interests may be influencing how it is being evaluated and presented.

We believe patient advocates should be committed to full transparency and impartiality in their work. Advocates can share with clients their research methods for ascertaining that the information and resources they collect are as accurate, complete, and objective as possible.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Health Advocacy Solutions is committed to fully respecting the privacy and confidentiality needs of our clients and users of this web site.  Medical records and other personal information we may have access to in our work are kept fully private and confidential, except when explicitly stated otherwise by the patient or designated health-care representative in writing.  We handle all personal medical information in accordance with federal HIPAA standards.  Information provided by users of our web site, including e-mail addresses and other personal data, is kept confidential and will not be disclosed to third parties.  Please see our Privacy and Terms of Use statement.

An Evidence-based Approach

Health-care knowledge is constantly changing and expanding.  While compelling research has led to clear and widely recognized consensus in the medical community regarding the diagnosis and treatment of some conditions, for others there is often debate and uncertainty.  To add to the confusion, evidence for the effectiveness of some promising treatments is often incomplete or anecdotal.  At Health Advocacy Solutions, support an evidence-based approach in order to provide an open-minded but scientifically informed perspective of available options.  For many researchers, the “gold standard” of compelling evidence for efficacy is the publication of results from double-blind experimental trials in elite, peer-reviewed medical journals.  We share in this judgment.  However, many potentially promising treatments have either shown ambiguous results in experimental research or have not been systematically investigated at all.  In such cases, we recommend collecting the evidence that does exist --positive or negative-- from non-experimental trials, retrospective studies, and other reputable methods to provide clients with as much helpful information as possible.

We use the same evidence-based approach to inform our work helping clients improve the quality of care offered in clinical and community settings.  Our patient-centered support services are informed by regular assessments of social science and public health research findings that identify helpful strategies to improve quality of care.  We supplement these insights with the knowledge and experience that come from constant on-the-ground learning.