Here's how you can navigate the challenges of patient advocacy as a mid-career professional.

When navigating patient advocacy as a mid-career professional, understanding the different roles within the field is crucial. This includes individual advocates, patient advocate organizations focused on specific diseases, and those working within healthcare systems.

In my experience patient advocacy requires vast knowledge, attitudes and skills from the healthcare professionals and all members of the multidisciplinary team. Knowledge of the patient's Bill of Rights has to be known, well understood, updated according to the ever-changing protocols and implemented. All parties delivering Healthcare services have to work in sync with each other to be advocates for the patient. Communication with the patient has to be clear and effective from assessment to evaluation. Without a proper needs assessment it is difficult to advocate for the patient. Members of the PALS team have to be integral to the process of advocacy so that patient's complains are addressed accordingly.

Building trust to foster effective partnerships with both the patient community and the industry is key. Here are some key strategies: 1. Understand Intersecting Goals: Recognize that the advocacy community may have different priorities than the industry. Take the time to understand these differences and find common ground where your goals align. 2. Transparent and Frequent Communication: Keep the lines of communication open and honest. Regular updates and dialogues make the patient community feel like integral team members rather than just a checkbox in your process. 3. Celebrate Achievements: Keep up with milestones and new initiatives undertaken by the patient community. Show your support by celebrating these achievements with them.

In my experience all Healthcare Professionals and members of the Multidisciplinary team at all levels of care levels work together with stakeholders and communities to advocate for the patient. There is continuous communication via meetings and various forms of data sharing. Whenever the cycle of communication and information sharing is broken, patient advocacy is compromised. When that happens, trust between the patient and all involved in their management is broken. Building that trust again takes a lot of effort and wastes human and financial resources. This further compromises future advocacy. Hence the mainstay to patient advocacy is teamwork by all parties involved in patient management, from the community to the government.