Solving What’s Been Missing

Our current healthcare system is often driven by metrics: patients per hour, patient satisfaction scores, price per procedure, checklists, and outcome measures. “Value based care”,” copays” and “deductibles” are the names many have come to associate with the health system. Somewhat lost in this is the relationship between a care team and the patient.

Many of the patients I have treated, and many of my friends, bemoan the loss of connection they have with their doctors. We ask our patients to come to us, often dragging their over-stressed and overworked families with them. We ask them to sit in waiting rooms, undergo perfunctory exams by hurried workers, get undressed in over-lit and sterile strange rooms, stick sharp objects into their skin, and then ask them to rate our kindness and ability to listen! Often, patients leave this experience confused and frustrated. Then comes the final injustice of receiving bills that are difficult or impossible to understand with amounts that are often shocking and outrageous.

With the power of time, touch, and the healing conversation, supported by caring healers and sophisticated technology, we have found that we can become more than that country doctor from the past as a team of caregivers.

We have learned that we can meet our patients in the comfort of their homes, perform thorough exams, obtain blood and lab results in minutes, start IV’s and give medication, without their having to come to us. Some of our healthcare scientists have shown that as a result people, especially seniors, heal faster, costs are less, and their satisfaction with the process is so much better than the alternatives.

Certainly, our hospitals, urgent care centers, doctors’ offices will continue to serve important roles in our healing journeys. But for the right patient at the right time with the right team and the right treatment, there is often a better way. Maybe this is what has been missing.

Pillar Health: A Better Way To Care.