“The tasks that an individual must undertake to live well with one or more chronic conditions. These tasks include having confidence to deal with medical management, role management, and emotional management.” – Institute of Medicine, Report of a Summit, Sept 2004.

For patients, self-management means having the skills and opportunity to be involved in the management of your own health conditions. This is particularly beneficial for people who are living with chronic diseases or long-term conditions. In chronic conditions, patients have a central role in managing their condition and its treatments, side effects, and resulting lifestyle changes.

You can read more about patient self-management in this position paper by Patrick McGowan, PhD (University of Victoria); and in this article by Kate Lorig, RN DRPH (Stanford University) and colleagues.

Are Patient Self-Management programs available in Ontario?
Self-management programs have existed for decades and have been widely implemented in the UK (Expert Patients Program, part of the NHS) and the US (for example, through major insurer Kaiser Permanente) as well as in BC and Alberta’s provincial and regional health authorities. The Arthritis Society’s Arthritis Self-Management Program has been offered for many years to arthritis patients across Canada. These programs originated from Stanford University’s research in patient education.

In Ontario, we are just beginning to integrate patient self-management programs into health care services. There are many opportunities in Ontario to move towards the expanded chronic care model and to implement Patient Self-Management programs on a wider scale.

The Ontario Patient Self-Management Network helps to coordinate patient self-management activities and to provide momentum for this approach to be more widely accepted in Ontario health care.

Click here for a summary of patient self-management programs in Ontario compiled in 2006.