A Change of the Medical System to Patient-Centered Consumerism: Is that What You Want?

Here is what Donald M. Berwick, writing in Health Affairs May 2012 suggests a the way the medical system can really become "patient-centered" and not present only partial changes in that direction but, in my words, "not half cocked but going the whole way". So now look at this list of changes and see if this is how you would want your doctor, nurse, hospital and the whole system to behave.

(1) Hospitals would have no restrictions on visiting—no restrictions of place or time or person, except restrictions chosen by and under the control of each individual patient. (2) Patients would determine what food they eat and what clothes they wear in hospitals (to the extent that health status allows). (3) Patients and family members would participate in rounds. (4) Patients and families would participate in the design of health care processes and services. (5) Medical records would belong to patients. Clinicians, rather than patients, would need to have permission to gain access to them. (6) Shared decision-making technologies would be used universally. (7) Operating room schedules would conform to ideal queuing theory designs aimed at minimizing waiting time, rather than to the convenience of clinicians. (8) Patients physically capable of self-care would, in all situations, have the option to do it. 

This might be just the beginning of suggested changes just as sweeping as the ones that Berwick suggests.  Read the entire article and then return and tell us what changes would you as a patient and a consumer would additionally want to see? Also, do you have any criticism of the changes noted above or by my visitors? ..Maurice.