Center for Consumer Self Care

Our Values for High Quality Consumer Self-care

The patient-health professional relationship is a partnership, and the patient, not the disease, must be the central focus of the health care experience.

Patients are consumers of health care. They have a responsibility to actively engage in activities that promote their health and help manage their diseases and conditions, including their choice of care and their selection and use of products.

Health professionals have a responsibility to empower consumers with knowledge about how to self-manage diseases and reduce health risks. Consumer empowerment for effective self-care is achieved with the health practitioner as an informed coach, who balances the consumers' values and attitudes with evidence-based approaches for appropriate health behavior change.

Equitable access to safe, effective, high-quality health care at reasonable cost is a right of the consumer.

Improving health literacy to help consumers at all age, race and income levels read, understand, and act on health information is vital for effective self-care.

Predicting and changing consumer and health professional behavior is pivotal to achieving the full benefits, at minimized risk, of health promotion and disease management strategies associated with consumer self-care.

Public health policy relating to self-care access, cost, outcomes and quality at the local, state and federal levels should be evidence-based and developed through public involvement of health professionals and consumers.