News & Views

Empowering Patients through Human Kindness: The Docent Touch

Many patients are confused by the healthcare system and struggle to navigate it effectively. As an administrative assistant and new patient coordinator in a busy Boston hospital for four years, Hannah Selk saw the negative effects this had on patient care and the patient experience firsthand. Patients, she says, often didn’t have the resources or knowledge they needed to feel empowered and engaged in their own care.

“I felt really burnt out because I felt like the system was not set up to help people, and I wanted to,” says Selk. “I wanted to be an advocate for patients since I had that insider knowledge—I knew how things worked.”

In 2017, she jumped at the opportunity to work for Docent Health, which partners with health systems across the country to conduct patient navigation programs in settings including orthopedics, cardiovascular, maternity, behavioral health, and primary care. The company uses patient navigators called Docents, who are supported with a custom-built technology platform to guide and capture their interactions with patients across the care continuum—before, during, and after episodes of care.

Want to learn more about Docents and how they are supporting patients longitudinally across healthcare journeys? Click here to download the article.