Countering the prevailing thought that more medical testing and treatment is always better can be achieved by creating a forum for open discussion of costs and value to prevent patient harm from overuse.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(11):1079-1081. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.11.mnar1-1511.
Society values both the appropriate use of new technological and management innovations and the maintenance of a strong personal and therapeutic relationship between patients and physicians. The medical-home model may be able to accomplish both.
Physicians working in close-knit communities, whether small towns or urban neighborhoods, have to manage relationships with people who may be simultaneously patients and neighbors, friends, and business associates.
Physician employment adds a practice management stakeholder to the patient-physician encounter, a stakeholder whose financial interests differ from those of physicians in solo or group practice.
Publicizing physician ordering information as a way of peer-pressuring hospital employees into cutting costs is likely to have unintended consequences.
Conducting community-based research in the community where one resides demands careful planning, sensitivity to community members’ privacy, and a strong commitment to full and respectful communication.