FOCUS

FOCUS changes everything.

I wrote yesterday on how a DECISION FOCUS could be a core health care reform.

If the health care professional team were to FOCUS on the DECISIONs being made by or for the patient, what would happen?

If the FOCUS is on documenting the correct number of elements for patient charting and there is an additional FOCUS on getting specific tests or interventions done (though often not most important for what the patient is seeking), and these two different foci are tremendously complex, how much attention is left for decision-making?

Would you make important life decisions while the key issues for decision-making are out of FOCUS? Why do we accept that for health care decisions? Aren't they important life decisions?

If the health care professional team were to FOCUS on the DECISIONs being made by or for the patient, what would happen?

Perhaps we would see time for communication valued and prioritized. Perhaps we would see greater attention for tools to support DECISIONs and designed for the people who are making DECISIONs. Perhaps it would be more clear what people are "getting" when they access health care services. Perhaps we would FOCUS on how to help people make the "right" DECISION for them, rather than predefine the "right" DECISION and try to pursuade everyone to do it.

For sure such a change in FOCUS would need changes to how we record health care encounters, how we express expectations for health care services, and what we actually expect. But would such a change in FOCUS be a change getting closer to what matters? If you had the choice for the FOCUS of health care, what would be your DECISION?