 |
|
Changing the Organization of Health Care
|
|
| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings. |
|
|
|
To the Editor: We think that the Special Communication by Drs Porter and Teisberg1 skirts around several central issues. First, how should medical practice be organized for patients with more than one medical condition? Coordinated care around a single condition can be powerful when there is only one dominant and well-defined problem, such as cancer or chronic kidney disease. But what about the common situation of a Medicare recipient with more than 10 conditions requiring care? Multiple related and unrelated diseases and comorbidities are increasingly frequent with an increasing elderly population.
Second, patients often seek care for undifferentiated symptoms and concerns. Examples include fatigue, which can be caused by a myriad of underlying conditions, and chest pain, which in primary care may be more likely to be caused by problems other than those arising in the heart. Who will sort out these problems when they are early or changing in . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Truls Østbye, MD, MBA, PhD
truls.ostbye@duke.edu
Lloyd Michener, MD
Department of Community and Family Medicine
Duke University Medical Center
Durham, North Carolina
RELATED LETTERS
Changing the Organization of Health Care
Afschin Gandjour
JAMA. 2007;298(3):286.
EXTRACT
| FULL TEXT
Changing the Organization of Health Care—Reply
Michael E. Porter and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg
JAMA. 2007;298(3):287-288.
EXTRACT
| FULL TEXT
RELATED ARTICLE
How Physicians Can Change the Future of Health Care
Michael E. Porter and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg
JAMA. 2007;297(10):1103-1111.
ABSTRACT
| FULL TEXT
|
