Issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Issues - Essay Example Shared decision-making (SDM) which is a collaboration between patients and caregivers in the treatment process, is gaining recognition as the basic necessity of a patient-centric model of care. It is considered to be especially ideal for the treatment of chronic illnesses (Zoffmann et al., 2008). SDM is essentially based on a mutual selection of care goals arrived at by the patient and his physician, but is not well understood or appreciated by many health professionals. Following is a case scenario in point. The trustees of the Snowdon Fund Medical School and Hospital were keen that the organization should revitalize itself and become more productive to keep abreast of competition. A committee comprising of a nominated trustee, experienced administrators, clinicians, and senior nursing staff was formed to draw up a competitive strategy for the same. During a meeting of the committee, Prof. Jones, a senior professor and clinician made a strong case for adopting shared decision-making (SDM) to make the treatment more patient-centric and the hospital patient-friendly. Prof. Jones with more than two decades of experience in treating chronically ill cases was convinced that SDM was the way to go especially where the treatment of chronic diseases was concerned. A perusal of published medical literature (Legare et al., 2008) and her own discussions with her patients had persuaded her to believe that patients want to be involved in their own treatment. Thi s was good, Prof. Jones opined, because with the ever-increasing number of patients taking medicines, allowing them to make informed choices would definitely reduce waste and unnecessary cost associated with non-compliance with the prescribed medication regimen, yet help the patients derive the full benefit of the treatment. In chronic illness, â€Å"adherence to physician designed programs is usually moderate to poor.† (www.amga.org). The