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Ways to improve the healthcare system

I have seen many videos in the media where people are explaining to doctors and nurses that they are hurt. The doctors and nurses are not believing these people and the people end up dead or seriously ill. How can we put an end to this?! #doctor #july20 #career #healthcare

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John’s Answer

Seems like many medical organizations are pushed to get people through in less time, thus not much time to listen to the patient in detail. Also, most doctor's don't seem to have problem solving skills. I think we have to go back to the schools and have different people with the right skill set leading the changes that are needed and then we need different people that understands the needs to lead the medical organizations. Until then the few that want to solve the patient problems are fighting an uphill battle which only gets easier if they start their own business.

Until then patients have to try many different doctors until they find the one willing to help. Unfortunately, patients may not have time to find the right doctor.

I've seen a Junior college hire a business person, not a Phd teacher, to restructure their way of thinking and processes (which was tough for many of the current teachers and administrators) and after lots of changes the school is doing great. I see this occurring more and more, unfortunately it's tough to change organizations like Universities, Hospitals, Congress because they are so used to their ways of doing things vs seeking other ideas to improve which is part of the problem solving/process improvement skills. We had a U.S. Senator visit once that was discussing issues in Congress. I told him they should hire some engineers to help them improve their processes since they didn't seem to understand how to improve. He just laughed and said no way he would be able to convince anyone to do that. :)
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Camila’s Answer

I agree with Yasemin and John. Systems, shorter sessions, and personalities come up often as reasons for poor treatment and poor outcomes. Providers are often overburdened by bureaucracy and so many requirements that sometimes they may not have time to decompress in between patients. With time, that can exhaust their compassion (compassion fatigue) or they can become traumatized by things they see and don't have the opportunity to process (secondary/vicarious trauma). The somewhat good news is that there are multiple initiatives trying to address this issue. Check out Healthcare Quality Assurance to give you an idea of the trainings (trauma informed care, patient centered care, etc.), pay for performance measures (better outcomes = better pay), patient safety reviews and process improvement, quality accreditations, etc. Hope this helps!
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Yasemin’s Answer

Hi Deanna! It definitely is tricky and unfortunately, healthcare can sometimes be so systematic that change is very hard. I hope we do someday see it; medicine is instilling some changes, especially medical schools focusing on patient-centered care, cultural competency and thinking outside the box. Possibly with time we may see changes, however even as an individual physician or nurse you can be aware of these improvements and focus on them with your patients. I think classes like sociology, psychology, and public health introduce prospective healthcare workers to very important topics and highlight the changes needed, enhancing their perspective. It may be hard for everyone to change, and even if you can't maybe make the improvements apply to everywhere, if you can make a difference for even one patient, then it will mean the world for that patient.

Best of luck!
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