Better Doctors, Better Patients, Better Decisions
- 416pages
- 15 heures de lecture
How eliminating risk illiteracy among doctors and patients will lead to better health care decision making.
Cette série explore la recherche scientifique de pointe et les discussions à l'intersection de la biologie, de la neurologie et de la médecine. Chaque volume offre une exploration approfondie des questions cruciales qui façonnent notre compréhension des systèmes biologiques complexes et des maladies. C'est une lecture essentielle pour les scientifiques, les universitaires et toute personne désireuse de saisir les avancées scientifiques.
How eliminating risk illiteracy among doctors and patients will lead to better health care decision making.
One of the main problems in providing uniformly excellent health care is not lack of money but lack of knowledge - on the part of both doctors and patients. The studies in this book show that many doctors and most patients do not understand the available medical evidence. Both patients and doctors are "risk illiterate" - frequently unable to tell the difference between actual risk and relative risk. Doctors often cannot interpret test results; patients cannot make informed decisions if they are given bad information. Surprisingly, treatments vary widely from one region to another. For example, in one referral region in Iowa, sixty percent of prostate patients had surgery, while in another region only fifteen percent had the same surgery. This unwarranted disparity in treatment decisions is the rule rather than the exception in the United States and Europe. All of this contributes to much wasted spending in health care. The contributors to Better Doctors, Better Patients, Better Decisions investigate the roots of the problem, from the emphasis in medical research on technology and blockbuster drugs to the lack of education for both doctors and patients. They call for a new, more enlightened health care, with better medical education, journals that report study outcomes completely and transparently, and patients in control of their personal medical records, not afraid of statistics but able to use them to make informed decisions about their treatments
Experts discuss the multiple components of sustainability, the constraints imposed by their linkages, and the necessity of taking a comprehensive view.