Project Duration: 2013-2015
Partners:
1. Istituto Superiore di Sanita’, Italy
2. Azienda Unita’ Sanitaria Locale Umbria 2, Italy
3. Bulgarian Association for Promotion of Education and Science, Bulgaria
4. İZMİR KATİP ÇELEBİ ÜNİVERSİTESİ TIP FAKÜLTESİ
5. KOMUNIKUJEME o.s., Czech Republic
6. Greek Dementia Association, Greece
7. Universidad de La Laguna, Spain
Project Coordinator: Ms Amalia Egle Gentile, Istituto Superiore di Sanita’, Rome, Italy
Official Website:
Project Objectives: The aim of this project is to offer physicians a respectable intellectual framework – no longer rooted in this old-fashioned mind/body dualism – to work with, together with the instruments to implement it in everyday practice. The framework is NBM and the instruments are integrated medical records. Ultimately, the project purpose is enriching both the physician’s work by drawing their attention to the variety of cultures and beliefs with which they come into contact with, and patient’s experience of the healthcare system, particularly in the matter of chronic conditions, especially rare diseases. An important outcome of this project will be the exchange of new ideas and approaches from different cultural perspectives, the transfer of new methodologies and the development of training guidelines that can be implemented, in the initial phase, by all partners involved and subsequently to more European countries. In particular, the project wants to promote: the use of integrated medical records; the integration between EBM and NBM; the empowerment of physicians, health operators, patients and their families; аnd to improve: the quality of the service, both real and perceived; the relationship between patient, family, medical and health care personnel; the adherence to therapy.
Project Outcomes: The effective practice of healthcare requires the ability to recognize, interpret, and act on the stories of others. Medicine practiced with “narrative” competence is a model for humane and effective medical practice. The value of the innovation introduced by the narrative approach has the potential to dramatically improve the quality of healthcare systems throughout Europe (and beyond). The dissemination of such practices can only be achieved by sharing common experiences and stories.
Additional Information: Narrative Based Medicine (NBM) wants to act as a complementary approach to Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM), paying attention to stories of illness as a way to understand people and place them correctly in their specific context, focusing on the needs, but also on new strategies of intervention. The importance of EBM in clinical practice is incalculable and undeniable. However, the type of knowledge acquired through clinical research – also known as “empirical evidence” – is in itself insufficient to provide for optimal clinical care.