The article in the Times on the quest to find appropriate medical care to achieve quality patient care is fascinating. Here is the link to the article.
- Chen, a medical doctor, who wrote the article suggests that the evidence-based medicine that focuses on patient care at the clinical premise only is not good enough to promote quality health care. We need a more integrated approach that takes a special care of a patient's life as a whole (at home, at office, etc.).
- It refers to an article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine that espouses the concept of evidence-based health.
- So, what is evidence-based health? It is an idea that "primary care providers and community and public health workers would no longer work alone but together in a coordinated efforts that would extend from the exam room to the home."
- The journal article discusses the initiative in Vermont called "the Blueprint for Health" that has successfully coordinated the care of 60,000 patients.
- Here are some excerpts of how this initiative works and some proof of success: "Community health teams that include nurses, social workers and behavioral health counselors spend time both within doctors' practices and out in the community, tackling care-related obstacles like transportation, insurance applications and even housing and unemployment. While the program is still relatively young, hospital admissions and emergency department visits have dropped, resulting in lower monthly costs per person."
- This holistic perspective towards health care looks very promising. It will be interesting to see if it can be scalable and achievable in other locations.
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