ALAIN A. CHAOUI, MD, MMS PRESIDENT
In just a few weeks, my tenure as president of this extraordinary Medical Society will come to an end. As I begin to reflect on one of the great highlights and honors of my professional life, I also recognize the importance of looking forward.
Our health care system is at a junction that is difficult to navigate for patients and physicians. There is great promise in medicine and also great challenges. If we act on those challenges in a prudent way — one that engages patients and energizes doctors — I believe it will yield great dividends.
I have learned during my years of practice that health care doesn’t necessarily need an upheaval or a revolution. Instead, it’s through the thoughtful and deliberate implementation of fundamental principles that we create a system that serves the interests of both patients and clinicians.
These are the top 10 principles that I believe will help forge that path:
- Transparency: Commit to transparency of cost and quality to fortify trust and the sacred patient-physician relationship.
- Literacy: Foster health literacy among our patients so that they can be better decision makers about their health; this includes improving their understanding of coverage and the value of prevention and quality care.
- Cost of care: Work together to reduce the cost of care. I liken this to the gradual and steady adoption of recycling. Everyone who is part of the health care ecosystem must do his or her share to reduce waste.
- Integrate care: Integrate effective and appropriate behavioral health care with primary care. The two are inextricably linked and cannot continue on parallel tracks.
- Team-based care: Encourage physician-led health care teams that deliver value to patients. Champion systems of care in which nurse care managers are important members of the care team.
- Patient safety: Strive for a comprehensive system that fosters patient safety.
- Affordable medication: Support affordable access to medications for chronic illnesses to ensure patient compliance and the prevention of long-term complications.
- Broaden access: Explore the feasibility and effectiveness of physician-led outpatient care models offering comprehensive care — ones that include low-cost ancillary services and after-hours and weekend access.
- Social determinants: Expand access to care by exploring ways of overcoming barriers erected by the social determinants of health. This includes greater adoption of telemedicine.
- Physician burnout: Recognize our finite capacity to doctor and adjust if limits of time and resources impact our effectiveness or erode the feeling of joy in practice. Let doctors be doctors.
With a focus on these principles, I’m hopeful that health care will be strengthened where debilitated, reinvented where inadequate — and that all of this will be built on a thoughtful framework that considers the perspectives of patients and clinicians.
