Patient-Centered Healthcare: It’s All About You
Are you looking for more natural options in your healthcare? Have you been told that you have to learn to live with your problem? Fortunately, there is a shift occurring in the world of medicine today and the options you desire are completely possible.
The world of medicine is coming full-circle. We are moving away from an old outdated disease-centered model called disease-centered care. With this type of care, there came a certain question: “What type of disease does this person have?” But when you ask that question, you start to focus on what? Disease! And when you focus only on disease, guess who gets left out? That’s right, the actual patient.
If you focus on disease only, you may knock out that disease, but guess who’s going go along with it a lot of times? The patient. In other words, the risk factors increase for the benefits desired. Now there are times that you may need to consider this such as a life-saving procedure or medication, or in cases of chemotherapy for cancer. Yes, it will blast out the cancer, BUT the patients get beat up in the process. Or taking antibiotics to knock out the bug, BUT it’s also going to wipe out your intestinal flora. Again, there are times that these modalities are necessary. But with that said, we now have more integrative options that can support the body during the use of these modalities or as other options entirely.
These options are possible because there is a shift occurring in the healthcare system. We are now moving away from this old outdated disease-centered model into a new era of medicine called patient-centered healthcare – which asks an entirely new question. “Who is the person who has the disease?” The focus is on you, the patient! When you come from this question, your entire healthcare changes and you start to look at the upstream issues. You start looking at diet, lifestyle, exercise, nutrition, mindset, and standard of health.
This is what integrative and functional medicine is all about. What’s happening now is that we’re merging both systems where Western medicine and Eastern/Chinese medicine are coming together in what we called functional medicine. That is what patient-centered healthcare is all about.
I often remind this to our patients who have been referred to us by their doctor. Why? To remind them that they are part of this exciting shift that is all about them being in the front seat of their own health. I found this to be quite empowering for the patient to know that they are at the center stage of their healthcare. The fact that medical doctors refer over 85% of our patients that come to our center tells us that the focus of these doctors is on what’s best for the patient’s return to health.
In today’s world, we are seeing that patients can have access to both systems of medicine, which clearly has a synergist effect, leading to a reduced need or increased effectiveness of medication. On that note, I’d like to share with you a really interesting study that was quite eye opening. This study showed that in 1997, Americans made 386 million visits to their medical doctor. That sounds like a lot! But do you know what was even more interesting? At the same time, Americans made 627 million visits to alternative medicine practitioners. That’s almost twice as much! According to Harvard Medical School, one out of every two people in the United States between 35 and 49 years old has made a visit to an alternative medicine practitioner. With such a significant increased use of alternative therapies, it’s obvious that there is a greater demand for non-pharmaceutical options. For example, medical doctors refer patients to our center to help these patients reduce their need for pain medication via the use of biomedical acupuncture. So this shift is happening everywhere!
A question you may want to ask yourself is, “What can I do to be part of this shift?” The first start thing is to have an understanding that the medical system is known as mainstream medicine, containing two sides to it. We have downstream and we have upstream. Downstream medicine is the treatment primarily of disease, signs, and symptoms. Upstream medicine is a focus on improving lifestyle, exercise, diet, nutrition, standard of health, and the mindset behind it. There are thousands of diagnoses and thousands of diseases. They are just the downstream effect of a weak link, and that weak link is always a breakdown in function.
So again, how can you be part of this shift? Start thinking integrative: Utilizing the best of all science-based medicine. Think beyond just your condition. Start to look upstream and ask yourself and ask us, “What else can I do? How else can I help myself?” You want to start focusing on thriving not just surviving. If you focus only on surviving, you’re just going to meet your day and you’re going to just get by. The empowered patient sees themselves at the center stage of integrating the best of all medicines.
Be proactive and not reactive in your health care. When you’re reactive in your health, you live in fear. When you live in fear about your health, you stay stuck at the effects of your life. So DECIDE to take responsibility and get back into the driver’s seat of your own health. In our modern medical system, the combination of multiple therapies significantly increases patient outcomes. This integrative approach has a greater affect than any one modality on its own. Adding science-based natural medical modalities such as acupuncture, dietary, herbal, and nutritional therapy as well as brain training technology called neurofeedback into your healthcare is a safe and effective approach to the treatment of many health problems, especially pain, inflammation, stress, anxiety and depression.
If you’d like to find out more about how we can assist you with your specific health concerns and how we can best integrate the use of natural medical modalities along with your current health care in a safe and effective way, contact our office at (619) 287-4005 to schedule a free consultation with one of our functional medicine specialists where they can answer any questions you have to find out if and how we can help you with your healthcare needs.