Patient Safety
"Emphasis in care, rather than in intervention is what we need our health care system to be."
En Español | Today’s medicine has derailed from its original purpose: to treat and heal patients, to provide care for the physical aspects of our bodies, and to provide comfort for the mental and emotional aspects of illness, to become a competitive sector, controlled by diverse entities and regulations which difficult the accomplishment of its original purpose, to provide an appropriate delivery of care.
In our current healthcare system, it is very difficult for a patient to determine if the approach to care that is given to them is in their best interest, or, as usually is the case, if it simply complies with the industry’s guidelines and regulations. As such, many patients are sicker after seeking care than they originally were, abandoned by the same system that was supposed to take care of them.
The problem with today’s medicine is that there is too much medicine, or too much of:
Overuse
Overdiagnosis
Over-testing
Medicalization
Over detection
Waste
Pseudo-disease
To Proactively Take Care of Your Health
1. Start by following a healthy lifestyle.
2. Be informed as much as you can...knowledge is power!
3. Understand the benefits, harms, and relative costs of treatments.
4. Decrease or eliminate the use of low or no benefit treatments.
5. Honor your body with your preferences, request the type of care you want.
6. Create a list of your medications and keep it up to date. Keep a medical history file with key information including physicians’ names, medical conditions, prior surgeries and hospitalizations. Click here for the Health Care at-a-Glance sample.
RESOURCES
View point for providing appropriate medical care.