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Patient Directed Healthcare

Colin Campbell
by Colin Campbell on 08/07/18 18:00
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Maybe it’s just that I’ve lifted the rock and this was underneath and now every time I look I see it, but it just seems to becoming like a Tsunami and it’s everywhere in healthcare.

Now everyone with a smart phone can check the literature and they can recite back papers that you’ve never seen.

Everyone can read the Daily Mail and everyone can see the stories about the poor, desperate children on life support whose parents don’t want to unplug the machine (and I do completely understand that).

The world has changed and is changing further still and the world of healthcare changing not the least.

We now live in a world where patients will sit in front of us almost as well informed as us (and sometimes better informed) and the Montgomery consent process insists that we allow them the choice for their treatment based upon the risks as they perceive them and as they are affected.

Welcome to the massive clash of individuality versus the greater good for the population.

We have a ‘system’ for looking after people and it’s supposed to be designed to achieve the greatest good for the most amount of people, but things have moved on and it’s all about the individual.

If it’s all about the individual, it can’t be about the greater good for everyone else because in the greater good for everyone else, individuals have to be sacrificed. From now on, and in an ever increasing way for all of us who work in healthcare, people will turn up with their smart phone in their hand, tell you what is wrong with them and tell you what they want.

More and more they’ll want to treat themselves.

They will tell you what it is supposed to cost and they will tell you that they will go somewhere else if you don’t provide it for that cost.

They will show you pictures of previous patient's work that they want to emulate (or want you to copy) and they will tell you what outcome they expect. If it doesn’t go exactly the way they want they will use the same device to send you to the ‘Beaks’.

Healthcare has just gotten more bespoke than it has ever been before and the ‘system’ doesn’t do bespoke.

Underneath every threat lies a huge opportunity and this is no exception.

Those of you who are interested in adopting disrupting technology to provide bespoke healthcare solutions for patients (that is evidence proven) will survive and thrive in the new and developing world wide healthcare economy.

Those of you who are going to wait it out, who think things will return to the good old days or at worst stay the same, will die a slow and painful death in the earthquake that will destroy the current doctor / patient relationship.

Make way for remote iPhone diagnosis, make way for people sending you photographs and asking whether they need to be seen or not.

Make way for patients expecting a video conference consultation before they come to meet you in person to start their treatment immediately because they liked you.

All of these and more already exist (they’re mobile 3D printing casts in rural Africa for broken limbs) it just depends how far on the technology and innovation curve you want to be to stay ahead in a world that’s travelling faster than it’s ever travelled before.

 

Blog Post Number: 1697

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Colin Campbell
Written by Colin Campbell
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