Patient Advocacy: Where Medical Cost Savings and Patient Care Meet

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- In the U.S., caregiving represents a $375 billion unrecognized, unregulated cottage industry.  Compared to all other industries including legal, automotive, and construction, healthcare is the only system that requires the vigilance of a 24/7 caregiver/advocate for the "customer." Primary Care Physicians (PCP) currently make up one third of the U.S. physician workforce and are responsible for more than 50 percent of all patient visits to doctor offices.  By 2025, it is estimated that the U.S. will have a shortage of 44,000 PCPs.  Why does this matter? With the numbers of aging baby boomers going up and the number of available primary care physicians going down, caregiving and patient advocacy have become essential to assuring quality medical care for the individual.

In the new book, HIYA: Patient Advocacy was Her Calling and Salvation, an inspired biography about a woman who redefined caregiving, by Karen Winston (http://karenwinston.com/), a vice president with the internationally recognized regional business accelerator CONNECT in La Jolla, CA and a certified clinical nutritionist, the critical role of patient advocate is explored through story and best practice tips. This poignant and disturbing biography characterizes the life of a San Diego woman (Hiya) known personally to the author, who fought in the most personal sense to survive with cancer and other diseases, but without health insurance or medical treatment until she turned age 65.  She not only applied tenacity for achieving good outcomes based on thorough research for her own care, but also throughout her life for those she cared for most.

The book depicts the challenges in the healthcare system to adequately serve the medical needs of the individual when faced with a complex medical case (Hiya) who wanted nothing short of a personalized care plan from a system only capable of providing a one-size-fits-all standard of care.

Patient advocacy tips are provided at the end of each chapter and the epilogue provides cost and time saving steps to creating better health outcomes with the deployment of a whole person focus by both caregiver and medical professionals.

For more information or to schedule a media interview:

Karen Winston
[email protected]
619.884.6767

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SOURCE Karen Winston