How Will Health Care Professionals and Patients Work Together in 2020? : A Manifesto for Change

Abstract

How can we accelerate the shift to a new paradigm of patient-centered health care? In this report, a manifesto for change is put forth, while acknowledging that health care systems are highly complex systems for which there is no simple solution. The starting premise is that one needs to launch and reinforce positive developments among both clinicians and patients. To this end, a vision is offered to transform medical schools into health professional schools; speci¿c ways of leveling the knowledge playing ¿eld between clinicians and patients are described to empower patients to ask more ques- tions and dissuade clinicians from “avoidable ignorance.” The Wennberg three-step action plan is proposed to demonstrate how a patient-centered health care paradigm can work for important process and outcome measures. To foster patients’ engagement within the health care system, an existing model that teaches health literacy to children in primary schools is described and possibilities are proposed to foster the delivery of quality health care information via the media and online communities, with the Internet being the technology that is most likely to complete the change in the dynamic of doc- tor–patient interaction. The 21st century is viewed as the century during which reform ushers in an adult conversation between patients and doctors.