Interdisciplinary Care Quotes

I think the extreme complexity of medicine has become more than an individual clinician can handle. But not more than teams of clinicians can handle.

It [The Gesundheit Institute] also won't separate the healing arts. All of them work together - traditional medicine and surgery with acupuncture, homeopathy, etc. We want to make the hospital a place a person can't wait to come to, whether they are working there or being there as a patient. Because we are interested in promoting wellness, we will integrate medicine with performing arts, arts and crafts, agriculture, recreation, nature, and social service. Those are some skeletal parts.

Health care historically has been a very siloed field that's organized around medical specialties - urology, cardiac surgery, and so forth - and around the supply of these specialty services. The patient is the ping-pong ball that moves from service to service.

How do we crate a quality health care system that is universal?

The way most doctors practice medicine right now isn't working.

As economists have often pointed out, we pay doctors for quantity, not quality. As they point out less often, we also pay them as individuals, rather than as members of a team working together for their patients. Both practices have made for serious problems.

Part of what any good health-care professional does, including an advanced-practice nurse, is know when it is time to seek help from more experienced professionals. I'm a primary care doctor. It doesn't mean I know everything. When something is beyond my competency or expertise, I seek consultation from my colleagues.

When we have laws that compartmentalize medical information, and when we have paper systems that compartmentalize medical information, you sometimes have a doctor who understands his specialty and is terrific on your kidneys, but he doesn't understand the totality of who you are.