Patients at the European Congress of Radiology

© ESR

EPF Secretary General, Nicola Bedlington, attended the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) – the annual meeting of the European Society of Radiology (ESR) – in Vienna, that took place from 4 to 8 March 2015.

She spoke about EPF’s perspective and work on patient empowerment and explained how it can lead to a more sustainable and progressive health systems. “We feel that it is essential to empower patients to enable them to really understand their own health and participate in their own care” she said.

She also discussed the importance of providing right health literacy skills to patients in order to enable them to properly understand information. “The medical professional community needs perhaps to understand patients in a different way, to shift from thinking of them as recipients of care but really participants in their own health”.

Nicola is also the Chairperson for the ESR Patient Advisory Group (ESR-PAG) which aims to bring together patient representatives and professionals from different disease areas and work together towards a patient-centred society.

 

 Watch Nicola Bedlington's interview: