Our Blogs
Stories and insights from stakeholders invested in
communication access in healthcare
When Silence Isn’t Safe
In the years before I began to develop best practices for self-advocacy, I would approach my medical appointments with a strategic plan that basically read: Do the best I can. In retrospect, it is troubling to consider how much essential information I may have missed.
Does Advocacy Matter?
This blog begins a three-part series that examines Toni Iacolucci’s out-patient experience and what it may tell us about the impact of advocacy.·
When Communication Unravels…What Next?
In this vlog, Peggy Ellertsen shares her lived experience about a healthcare consultation that fell apart - and the lesson she learned about changing course.
Reflection
In this blog, we begin to talk about the process that will allow patients to discover their power and follow a path for pro-active, strategic advocacy through Wayfinding. Our guidance is offered with the benefit of insights we have gained about pervasive barriers that exist within healthcare systems that so often get in the way of communication access for people with hearing loss.
Wayfinding and the Long Game
I joined my radiologist in her office at a large medical system in my home city for our consultation appointment around a recent CT scan. The session was scheduled to share information about the source of pain that had begun to radiate across my shoulder and down my arm a few months before. I was nervous but hopeful as I settled into the chair in the specialist’s office.
State of Affairs
About 25 years ago when my hearing was almost completely gone, there was barely any mention of hearing loss in the general media. I clearly remember the pivotal moment when an article by Jane Brody miraculously appeared in the New York Times: Personal Health; Needless Silence for the Hearing Impaired. To finally find an acknowledgment of hearing loss, the albatross that was rapidly encompassing my life, was a tremendous relief. I am not the only one.