Voices to Practice
Patient and Family Insights for Blood Clot Awareness and Safer Women’s Health Decisions
Introduction
What do patients and families wish had been clearer before a health decision, during a medical crisis, or while navigating recovery?
Voices to Practice brings those perspectives forward.
Developed by the Rowan Foundation, this patient- and family-informed report draws on in-depth discussions with members of the Foundation’s Patient & Community Advisory Group (PCAG), alongside selected medical, public health. and health communications research.
Six priorities shaped by patient and family experience
The report identifies six priorities for making women’s health information and care more useful, individualized and responsive.
1. Turn risk information into usable knowledge
Risk information should help women understand what matters to them, recognize warning signs, and know when to act.
2. Make individualized decision-making the standard across women’s health
Health history, life stage, treatment goals, and personal preferences should inform decisions involving contraception, fertility treatment, pregnancy and postpartum care, menopause, and other women’s health needs.
3. Give hormonal and nonhormonal contraceptive options a fair hearing
Women should receive balanced information about medically appropriate options so they can make informed choices based on their own needs and priorities.
4. Improve recognition and response when symptoms emerge
Blood clots should remain a meaningful clinical consideration when symptoms, medications, health history, and other risk factors point in that direction.
5. Build patient voice into safer care
Listening to patients and families can strengthen assessment and decision-making without placing responsibility for diagnosis on the patient.
6. Put credible information within reach
Women need clear, current, and medically reviewed information in the places where they seek answers.
From voices to practice
The report does not promote one choice for every woman. It calls for information and care that women can understand, evaluate and use — before a possible risk becomes a crisis.
Patient and family experiences cannot replace clinical evidence or medical guidance. They can reveal where communication falls short, where assumptions deserve closer examination, and where healthcare information and systems can better serve the people they are intended to protect.
The Rowan Foundation will use the insights in Voices to Practice to help guide future patient-informed education, professional outreach, and women’s health communications.
About the Patient & Community Advisory Group
The Rowan Foundation created the Patient & Community Advisory Group to ensure that its work is informed by people directly affected by blood clots and women’s health decisions. Members include survivors, people navigating recovery and ongoing health decisions, family members and bereaved parents.
