Saturday, June 30, 2018

Crises in Medical Arts: A Band-Aid Solution on the Horizon?



   A Band-Aid Solution on the Horizon?



To view the first article in this series, click here 

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal may offer a stopgap solution: Entitled  "Columbus Discovers America"  author Andy Kessler surmises that Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon may be exploring the placement of  Alexa, the virtual digital assistant, in every physician office "to listen and correctly fill in medical records automatically from the transcripts freeing doctors to actually care for patients." 
Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon
With a Net Worth of $109.2 Billion: 
Can he save personalized medical care? .
Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia 


Quarae: Though this scenario may or may not happen soon--indeed-- may not come about at all--will it solve the root of the problem?.

If indeed, the  medical professional is freed to render fact-to-face quality time with the patient, has he/she developed the skills--have the emotional intelligence---to relate to those suffering from chronic pain, distress and depression?  

..Namely: what does it take to train young men and women to be sentient understanding, sympathetic and, above all, empathetic,  care givers practicing the MEDICAL ARTS in the traditional old fashioned way.

Tune in to my next article,  on empathetic medicine as it should be practiced. 

Monday, June 25, 2018

Crises in the Medical Arts: Returning Medicine to Patient Centered Care Giving.





A Canary in the Goldmine

If there was ever a time that doctors (including all care-givers) need to have and nurture quality face- to- face time with their patients IT IS NOW!

Under the Electronic Medical Records Mandate of 2014, all public and private healthcare providers and other eligible professionals (EP) were required to adopt and demonstrate "meaningful use" of electronic medical records in order to continue receiving Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements at their current levels.

Since then, doctors' visits have become depersonalized, more robotic and more perfunctory so that the traditional care giver has been transformed into a data entry expert merely listening and simultaneously recording patient responses to routine questions with eyes focused most of the time on the computer. 

Sadly gone is the traditional patient doctor relationship of old when caregiver would give 100% attention to the body language, facial expressions, emotions, vocal intonations, etc. of his patient. 

Gone is empathy.

Say Hello to de-humanized care giving----if you can even call it that. 

It's rush rush rush at the consultation as the health professional is under pressure to 'see' as many patients as possible in an hour to maximize reimbursements from the governmental single payer system....

But, let's pause a moment because there may be a solution on the horizon. 

To learn more stay tuned.