preview

Paternalistic Approach To Health Care

Decent Essays
The change to a more value oriented, quality approach will have to be a widespread change in the way both providers and patients view healthcare. Providers and caregivers will need to take less of a paternalistic approach and will need to instead encourage patients to take their health into their own hands. Healthcare providers will need to realize that the days of high profits and low quality have come to an end. The public will have to understand that their provider is not responsible for their health and take back responsibility for their decisions. We as a nation have for too long viewed our health as something that someone else is responsible for.
The change regarding a major shift towards quality and value will take philosophical changes in both the public/consumer, and more importantly, the health care community. Currently, there is little admission by providers that they personally make errors, and it is highly likely that a great deal of errors are never reported. While some in the healthcare field admit that errors are a major concern, many deny that they personally contribute to the problem. We also seem to have a culture in healthcare that contributes to a false sense of perfection, and people sometimes seem more concerned about their reputation
…show more content…
Pew Research Center (2013) data indicates that 35% of Americans state that their wishes would be for a provider to do everything possible to preserve their life even with no hope for improvement and tremendous pain. This trend of sedentary lifestyles combined with poor health behaviors and death denying cultural attitudes must be addressed. The end of life care that we will all be faced with at some point currently accounts for a vast amount of resources, the majority of which are spent in the final months of care (Klinger, in der Schmitten, & Marckmann,
Get Access