Healthcare in America is changing. As the title implies, prevention should be at the heart of the industry. However, as we are all aware, there is more money to be made in treatment than prevention. With the current administration push to change the medical landscape, there is a need to trim down the excess and streamline the processes. Prevention is crucial to the overall plan for providing quality healthcare to the masses. Part of prevention is having a triage system in place to allocate the limited resources at the practitioner disposal. This system for us must begin now, during our PA education. The key is to know and understand current guidelines for the most common disorders, be aware of the guidelines for screenings and immunization and be able to acknowledge and understand the population of patients we are treating. Every patient which we see should be counseled against high risk activity; things like smoking, excessive alcohol intake and limited physical activity. This can be a challenge as it takes valuable time on all fronts. Educating and promoting prevention starts today.
However, as I am sure you are aware; with change comes conflict. As PA’s, we will be unleashed on seasoned PA’s and Physician’s who see no real end and no real solutions to the challenges our healthcare system faces. I believe this will be the most difficult challenge we will face. In addition to preparing to identify the high risk patients and knowing the screening guidelines, knowing how to educate and communicate to our supervising physicians the need for sound epidemiology (yeah, I said it) and being able to incorporate the data into treatment plans will be of utmost importance and potentially hardship. Hopefully, I am wrong. It is our call and our duty to carry the flag of prevention and wave it with proudly, while seeing each new day as an opportunity to usher the tide of change.
Ultimately, having said all this; to quote one of my colleagues, “…what hope do we have of helping them (or ourselves) to make those "therapeutic lifestyle changes"…?” In the end, the responsibility falls to the individual. Our current society is one of that delay’s responsibility until, all too often, it is too late. That’s why prevention must begin today. Hopefully, each of our small voices can be a ripple in creating a huge wave of change.
