How patients’ stories can shape better health services
Give patients the chance to tell their stories – you'll find it far easier to provide services that really meet their needs.
Stories are hugely powerful because they create and capture emotion – which quantitative approaches can't do.
In fact when you think about it, we use stories every day to stop and think about what has happened, why – and what we can do about it. Those who communicate for a living – politicians and the media – use stories all the time to great effect.
But how can we capture and use stories to bring about positive change to the services we provide? It's not just a matter of getting stories. You need the ones that reveal the most.
It is not straightforward. You need good facilitation skills. You must be willing to forego the need for statistics and deal with people's emotions. You need to know how to make sure the story relates to what you are examining.
In short, you need many skills, and considerable knowledge. In this day full of discussion and group work we cover some key areas:
-
What are stories and who uses them?
-
How to use stories to improve health services
-
Examples of how powerful stories can be
-
What is the story-dialogue method?
-
How to plan, facilitate and analyse stories
-
How to use qualitative data methodology to analyse stories
-
How to turn dialogue into prose without changing the meaning
-
Making sure that stories are "listened to"
-
Working with users and communities
-
How to work with patients with poor speaking and writing skills
-
Case studies of stories which have been used to change services
-
How to apply the what-why-so what – and what now cycle to stories