Do you trust your doctor? Does your doctor trust you?
In the U.K., doctors have topped the charts for the most-trusted professionals since 1983, while in the U.S., nurses have been voted the most-trusted professionals for 14 years with doctors ranking closely behind. We believe that the expertise and experience of healthcare professionals is diligently applied in making the right diagnosis and prescribing the right treatment for our various ailments.
But it hasn’t always been a two-way street.
Not so long ago, the doctor always knew best and, as medicine was historically a field where information was controlled and hard for most of us to understand, it was difficult to disagree with them. The good news is that this is changing.
Few of us are willing to be passive consumers anymore
Few of us are willing to be passive consumers anymore – we want to be more involved in managing our own health journeys. Most of us inform ourselves on the internet before visiting a doctor, ask our providers for data to validate our personal medical and health choices, and track our own wellbeing. Health professionals have recognized the shift and are embracing a more collaborative approach to medicine where patients are “activated”: encouraged to manage their own health and coached by their caregivers.
So far, so good, but even though this is the ideal balance we expect more regularly in the future, in practice we haven’t quite reached this level of harmony.
Does your doctor trust you?
The NHS Five Year Forward View talks about the need to support people to manage their health and care. However, recent surveys of primary care physicians’ support for patient activation (taking a stronger role in their care) in the U.K., the Netherlands and the U.S. indicated varied results, showing that not everyone is on board.
The average score from the doctors questioned suggests that the majority are interested in shared decision-making and patient engagement to help us make better choices, but it’s clear there are some reservations that span across cultures and healthcare systems. One key takeaway identified by the survey was the need to support clinicians in implementing patient activation.
So, can we be trusted to manage our own health?
The answer is less straight-forward than you might think.
In a recent, global study – the Future Health Index – it was discovered that there’s a discrepancy between what we as patients think we understand about health, and what healthcare professionals think we do.
Only 40% of the healthcare professionals questioned agree that patients have enough knowledge to manage their own health effectively, compared to a much more self-confident 69% of the (25,000+) patient population.
The reality probably lies somewhere in the middle – some of us do need more education and advice, but possibly not as much as the medical community believes.
How can all of us of be motivated to improve our health choices?
A bigger issue is how can all of us of be motivated to improve our health choices? If less than half of us regularly keep track of our weight and diet (47% and 42%, respectively), and if only 50% of us take our medicine on time or at all, it’s no wonder that some doctors are less enthused about taking on the job of activating us to take better care of ourselves.
Do we trust the healthcare system?
Most of us do trust our doctors, and healthcare professionals are generally very committed to helping us become more empowered, but the systems that our doctors work in are not so popular.
In the FHI research, 72% of healthcare professionals and 57% of patients overall, say that they trust the healthcare system in their country.
There’s a clear gap in opinion between the healthcare community and its patients in most countries; in the Netherlands, while 87% of healthcare professionals say they trust the national healthcare system, only 46% of patients agree. In Brazil only 35% of HCPs and 20% of patients see their system as trustworthy.
Why we need to trust
Faced with a population that is simultaneously growing and aging, and enduring increasing chronic health conditions and limited budgets, there’s no doubt this lack of faith on all sides must be fixed.
According to a recent study, those who trust their doctor may actually be more likely to fare better when they’re sick. The study found that three months following a cancer diagnosis, patients who did not trust their doctors were not only more distressed, but more physically disabled.
From wearable medical devices and connected medication dispensers, to video calls, messaging and portable electronic health records, digital solutions are already allowing healthcare to move beyond the confines of the hospital to the home. This provides doctors with the means to collaborate more closely with their patients, share information and decision-making, build trust, and improve our health.
Engagement and mutual trust, with some help from technology, are a perfect recipe for improved health.
Electrical Engineer, Consultant, Coach and Writer
8yIt is sad when we cannot trust one another and it is great to study this as it could be the root of for a future failure of the medal systems. But there is more to it than only trusting one another in a doctor patient relationship. How about as we as a patient take responsibility for our health and start to take care for ourselves first. In that I do not mean that we all must be studying medicine for ourselves, but that we take the responsibility for living healthy lives, to make healthy choices in exercise, food, how we are at work and behave ourselves in our families to name a few aspect of our daily lives. Everything matters if we start to bring that responsibility to ourselves and in that when anything happens to our health where we need the assistance of a doctor or medical specialist we bring a body that is been looked after and needs some special treatment and support in healing which we are not being able to provide to ourselves. Then we will have a complete different relationship with our GP as we have to work together for bringing healing to ailment our body is suffering from.
Freelance Medical Copywriter
8yIf we own the health service, we trust it. The same goes for transport and energy services, water and sewage. We should also own the land, the big leveller that will allow our children to own their own homes. We could also nationalise banks and write off all debts. Who could possibly be worse off?
Head of Innovation hub West @ EIT Urban Mobility. We engage, bring urban mobility professionals together, who create livable cities.
8yWould not it be great if all the health related data of people is kept in a safe environment, that enables people to share their dataset, or parts of it, with health professionals. This being for the most algorithms in the near future for diagnoses and first line care.
CIO Emeritus - Principal at M&I Health Consulting Services, LLC
8yAs I will write in an upcoming white paper, the late George Rosen, MD from Yale University once made reference to aspects of healthcare trust as “an affair of shared concepts and personal relationships ”. Similar to an approach suggested by Dr. Rosen, when examining opportunities for improvement, we must explore underlying causes, as well as those which may be more self-evident. Unfortunately, the patient is no longer tied to the PCP by loyalty. Oftentimes, a patient cannot order their own MRI or see a specialist without a referral. In the past, patient loyalty was based upon share concepts, comfort, trust, and consistently met expectations, including financial. Today, however, what PCP a patient may see may be more driven more by health plan guidance and impacted by such things as high deductible plans in the US. In addition, demands fueled by new reimbursement models can consume more resources, more technology infrastructure and may even require expansion of bricks and mortar. These demands create new costs for PCPs, and from a certain perspective, are technically outside the realm of actual patient care.
Principal Broker- New Frontier Real Estate
8ynot sure, my doctor mixed up my record to someone else' 10+ yrs senior in her clinic when I picked up my record for ready family move, and she gave me bunch sample drugs, and few many prescriptions too, since moved I haven't been dr' office for myself but took our kiddos to dr.s few many times,