Personal Healthcare Advocacy plan

I recently shared a story about my mom on LinkedIn and some health issues she has been dealing with. One thing it did for me is to underscore how broken our healthcare system can be at times, especially when it comes to the interoperability of critical health information. In sharing this, I had so many messages and responses with similar stories. I tend to look at this not as a way to complain but to see what we can do to help. We are in a position to make this better. We can all be advocates for a better healthcare experience and our legislators look to us to aid in this process.

For this project, I would like for you to come up with a personal advocacy plan. Who will you contact and what will you say? What issues will you address? How will you convey the issues in a succinct manner? There are several associations, such as AHIMA, that have active advocacy initiatives and make it easy to participate. Think about your personal stories and those stories of your loved ones and include this in your plan for advocating. It is also important to look at scholarly references to be able to back up your thoughts with solid resources. This may also help you to expand your plan and allow you to be a contact for your legislators when discussing these types of issues.