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What Is a Care Advocate?

By Gail Glockhoff-Long
GolderCare Solutions
Benefits Advocate

The Google AI definition of Care Advocate or Patient Advocate is “a person who actively supports and speaks up for someone needing care, whether it be medical, social, or personal, to ensure they receive the appropriate services and are making informed decisions about their wellbeing; essentially acting as a voice for someone who might struggle to advocate for themselves.”

Everyone in the healthcare system – whether hospital, doctor, nursing home, or assisted living – needs a care advocate. Without an advocate, you are at the mercy of the medical system based on the limited knowledge they have about you. That limited knowledge can be detrimental in the care you receive. The hospital or nursing home team do not know your normal before entering their care. Did the nurse put dementia on your chart because she said you were speaking gibberish when your gibberish was perfect Polish that she just didn’t understand? An advocate is your voice when speaking to the medical world.

A hospital setting is very intimidating and scary to most families. There are lots of beeping machines and medical staff walking in and out of the room without speaking to you. If you are lucky enough to have a doctor or nurse talk to you, it tends to be in their medical terminology and they need a decision agreeing to the next procedure immediately. Under pressure and white coat syndrome, when the doctor says husband is being discharge home in the next hour, what do you do? You know you have a 2-story house with bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs.

You are not strong enough to get him up the stairs. Do you know your rights? Do you know other options between the hospital room and home?

Professional Care Advocate in a hospital setting can communicate with the medical team either in person or by phone. They can assist the hospital discharge planner with appropriate options for your family. If he comes home, you have the responsibility to be able to safely get him out of the house if there is an emergency. Are you ready for that? Perhaps a short rehab stay at a facility near your home would be enough for him to come home. Perhaps it is time for an assisted living facility move. The professional, and independent, advocate can help interpret the situation and walk you through the options. I say “independent” because the hospital employee with the title of Care Advocate or Patient Advocate is looking for the most convenient option for the hospital – not your family.

Senior living and nursing home settings are a different personality than the hospital setting. You may start at assisted living level and gradually move to nursing level, or you may start at nursing level. Either way, it is generally a long-term placement. Over time you notice more and more things not done the way you would expect. A common complaint we hear from family is that the facility does not clean their loved one sufficiently. The family looks at it as a quality of life issue. The professional care advocate might bring it to the administrator as a care and compliance issue. Mom is not cleaned sufficiently, she develops a UTI which could become septic leading to a hospital run and a ding on the facility for improper care.

In a situation where the blind resident was losing weight and not eating, the facility said they were helping feed her. After observing that the staff help was about 3 bites and then moving on to the next resident. A suggestion of serving her food on an adaptive plate where the sides turn up like a bowl, the resident was able to feed herself without pushing the food off the plate.

As a nursing home resident, you are dependent on the staff for care for everything making you hesitant to speak up for your rights. An Advocate is your voice and can talk to the physical therapy, nursing, administration and care staff to help you receive the care you need. The care advocate is not the person receiving care, so they are better able to step back, put emotions in check, and be a buffer between the patient and the medical and care providers. When a family member or friend is the care advocate, they are often also the health care power of attorney. They know the person’s medical and life history. What that person is lacking is knowledge of the system, patient rights, and how to either work with or around the system to get the best outcome for the patient. Unfortunately, we often don’t know what we don’t know.

This is where working with a professional care advocate can help. The professional care advocate is not limited by that hospital or nursing facility protocol and can discuss and advocate for other options with the medical and care staff. By experience, knowing patient rights and being unconstrained by “the protocol”, a professional advocate can often see an option that is a win for both the family and the facility.

If you feel you are being bullied by the facility you or your loved one is living in, it is time to have a patient advocate on your side.

Gail is a Benefits Advocate with GolderCare Solutions, helping families navigate the complexities of aging, care, insurance, placement, and public benefits. She can be reached at 309-764-2273.