We talk alot about consumer driven health care, and Health2.0 companies allowing patients to rate doctors. Something not dissimilar is starting to happen in China, but with no technology involved. Fascinating stuff.
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Wow, that article totally made my day. I love the idea of using collective knowledge like that; it’s positively elegant. And they elect their committee members. I agree with drthom, I think I am in love. It’s a great example of a program which is well-suited to its context.
I read this article and I think I am in love. These folks have at least as much quality information regarding interventions as our patients do here, soaked as we are in Dr Donohue and direct to consumer advertisement.
Quackery is in the eye of the beholer. One might conclude that quackery is present when we give coreg for htn in diabetics to decrease the chances of renal failure even though the number needed to treat vs metoprolol is 48. By fighting to get docs to prescibe Kelloggs over Post, we docs are forgetting to make sure everyone is getting to eat breakfast at all. A little grass roots pressure to prove the power of the simplest of our interventions to the masses, like B-blocker after MI, might not be such a bad thing.
I may be trading in my medical spanish for medical chinese. I wonder if the brighter minds who read this blog could add up the number of federal regulations Dr Hsaio’s system breaks. Our system is so anti-competitive and pro-consumption.
With the horrible overall corruption in China, I’m sure this system has its limits. I would love the opportunity to try it under our, differently corrupted, system. Unfortunately, it would currently mean about 100+ years in prison in the US. Thanks for the heads up Tom
I think there are more options/outcomes that just these two extremes. I’d like a caring well trained doc too!. AND, I’d be very encouraged to know that my caring doctor also consistently provides proven meds in critical situations (i.e. Beta blockers post MI).
As our system becomes more “consumer driven”, it becomes less physician-driven.
The problem is that consumers generally do not know much about medicine.
Consumers’ interests must therefore be represented by those who are more knowledgeable. This has led to things like “quality measures” being imposed on doctors and hospitals.
The problem is that as these measures become more prominent, they come to be seen as an end rather than a means to the end result of better care.
When it comes to my health and that of my family, I want a well-trained, caring physician, not one whose primary focus is checking off enough boxes on a form to meet certain bureaucratic standards.
Hierarchy in health is out; democracy is in. It’s the general trend: Web 2.0 may get bah-humbugged by those unwilling to change, but people are increasingly turning – and will HAVE to turn – to being responsible for their own health, and the web will be an interesting avenue for this. Expect a boatload of quackery, but when the dust eventually settles and we can take a long hard look at social webbing, I expect we’ll actually be better off.