Information is Power
Information is power. This fact is slowly dawning on physicians, as patients are given more health care quality information, increasingly shifting decision-making power to the consumer. This is no longer your grandfather’s health care world, where physicians were all-powerful patriarchs, operating in a mysterious and untouchable ivory tower, where medical knowledge, outcomes and treatment decisions were completely in their hands.
Any consumer can now, with a click of a mouse, see how well hospitals in the US deliver appropriate care for three life-threatening conditions. By measuring these medical markers and publicizing the report cards, physicians are facing a new day. There’s no arguing with numbers.
Hospitals and physicians are now paying attention. Let’s keep chipping away at that ivory tower and shining a light into all of its dark and musty corners. Patients now have one more tool to help them make informed medical choices.
Naomi Cohen
Any consumer can now, with a click of a mouse, see how well hospitals in the US deliver appropriate care for three life-threatening conditions. By measuring these medical markers and publicizing the report cards, physicians are facing a new day. There’s no arguing with numbers.
Hospitals and physicians are now paying attention. Let’s keep chipping away at that ivory tower and shining a light into all of its dark and musty corners. Patients now have one more tool to help them make informed medical choices.
Naomi Cohen
posted by
at 2:05 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks for this topic. Information IS power, as I've seen repeatedly in my work as a Birth Doula. My clients who work with information, all the information needed to make fact-based decisions during their pregnancys and labors, are more satisfied than those who don't choose to consider the information before making a decision. No matter what happens in their birth, if they've done what felt right given the information they gathered, they feel good about their decisions and their path.
I appreciate that hospitals are being rated now, I'd love it if OB's made their c-section, episiotomy, instrumental delivery, etc., rates available to patients. Now THAT would be very informative!
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