Patient-Centered Health Care in the Information Age

Based on your readings, what do you think are the major health-care challenges facing the United States? What’s the first step in using health communication to address those challenges?

This prompt appears to be a very complicated question, because I began to research it seems that every celebrity physician has a different list of big issues with health care in American. In addition, Anti-Obama Care bloggers and lobbyist have their own lists as well. A simpler Google search return several articles with top 10s, 5s and strangely 9s. Is the real answer to this question able to be discussed in this forum, or is it the subject of an incredible misinformation campaign that appears to make the topic so complicated it makes one’s head spin.

CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, provides a list of nine, of which five seem to cross the various legitimate opinions that are out there. The first I mentioned is lack of availability of healthy foods (Gupta, 2015), which the text book (Parker, & Thorson, 2009) presents similarly as an overabundance of unhealthy food choices. These things are obviously connected to obesity, another common thread amongst the debate on this issue. Then there is of course the smoking of tobacco problems that lead to several chronic illnesses as well. So far this list is including a set of bad choices that we make, however, there are factors that do indeed make it so that we are less able to make better choices. The text, (Parker, & Thorson, 2009), states that poverty has a lot to do with these choices as well, as persons living in poverty are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, have stress related illness, and often live in what Gupta describes as “Food deserts,” those being areas being “urban neighborhoods and rural towns with limited access to fresh, affordable, healthy food (Gupta, 2015). Similarly, Gupta mentions the fact that we are overworked in America, when compared to other countries, working longer hours and with less vacation time.

Both the text and Gupta agree about increasing health care expense and cost, miscommunication resulting in health care errors, and an increasing number of persons reaching the age of 65 by 2030. While these problems seem to be the same old song and dance, I found the contention within the text (Parker, & Thorson, 2009), that health care practitioners are slow to apply new research and science in their health care provisions, which goes to the overworked population, and as Gupta suggest that there is a doctor shortage as well (Gupta, 2015).

I am sure that I have left some big issues out, but I have tried desperately to condense this discussion for economy; however, there is hope. Because as I mentioned earlier, a lot of our health concerns are related to choices. In America, we need to seek out ways to make better choices. While that is a difficult thing, because often people cannot afford to eat healthy or may not have a grocery store nearby as with the food desert concept, and when one needs a fast bight, processed TV dinners and fast food restaurants are a lot easier as we are all working more hours and don’t have a lot of time to spare. The text points out that hope revolves around the concept of “patient centered health care,” which has is foundation in the new media the various developing technologies that provide a means for the patients to take more control over their care as they have more information available to them to make better choices. So, communications may be a soft science in comparison to health care; information can be power. We, as health care consumers just need to find a means to harness, else these problems mentioned will only fester and get worse over time.

References

Gupta, Sanjay (2015). America's 9 biggest health issues . CNN . Jan. 5, 2015 . retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/02/opinion/gupta-health-challenges-2015/

Parker, J.C. & Thorson, E. (2009) . Health Communication in the New Media Landscape Parker, and Thorson, E. Springer Publishing 2009