Today, healthcare providers are increasingly confronted with patients who have chronic illnesses, engage in risky behaviors (smoking, drinking, a sedentary lifestyle, etc.), or face significant social challenges—sometimes all at once in a single patient. These situations are often difficult for the healthcare provider, who feels powerless to convince, explain, scare, or “hold accountable” the patient from whom they are seeking active cooperation. For their part, patients may feel that they are neither understood nor even heard. It is clear that healthcare providers today need to discover new ways of listening, observing, reasoning—in short, of providing support. It is this support that we will discuss today: the support of the patient embodied by “patient-centered health education.” In fact, we’re going to discuss a “triple revolution” when addressing patient health education. A revolution in which: - “the patient is no longer the object but the subject of the care provided to them” - “the goal is no longer to fight disease but to promote health” - “the prescriptive approach gives way to an educational approach.” I invite you to explore this concept of health education by trying to answer the following four questions: 1) What is it? 2) Why are we talking about it? 3) How do we do it? 4) And in my practice? [article excerpt]