By CHRIS DWAN (7)
We are living through an uncomfortable period in the practice of medicine.
The dialogue between patient and physician is critically underserved, both in terms of tools for patients and physicians, and also in terms of the data context where that conversation takes place. This is unfortunate, because those are the moments of human to human care. Whether it’s a clinic visit, a lab test, a counseling or physical therapy session, the patient / provider meeting is when the full breadth of the caregiver’s experience and training can be brought to bear. At these moments, the subtle observations and pattern recognition that constitute diagnostic expertise come into play. These are are also the times when the nuance and detail of the patient’s lived experience can be shared to influence the course of diagnosis and treatment.
Population health turns into personal medicine at the bedside.
That conversation between patient and physician ought to be a first class citizen in terms of tool development, but it is not. It is within our reach to build a clinical care environment that retains high standards of data integrity and privacy while also focusing on empowering the human beings in the room rather the interests outside the door.