Institute of Medicine Follow-Up Report

Headlines from today’s MSNBC news feeds read “U.S. health-care system tangled maze – Overhaul needed to bring 21st century care to patients.”

The Institute of medicine (IOM) has recently released their follow-up report to the “ground breaking” 1999 announcement that medical mistakes “kill from 44,000 98,000 hospitalized Americans each year.”

The article suggests that the U.S. health-care system is in serious need of help. Americans are receiving inadequate, outdated, and even unsafe therapies, according to the IOM report.

According to the article, the report recommends an overhaul towards patient focused health-care, resulting in Americans getting more information about their health and having more doctors focus on the latest advancements made available.

(This is one reason why chiropractic talks and health-care classes are so important. It is part of our duty to educate our communities so that they may be well-informed when making health-care decisions for themselves and their family. It is also important to continue research in chiropractic so that we may be aware of the latest advancements in our field.)

According to the article, the IOM report also recommends doctors make themselves more available to their patients. That includes using e-mail so that patients and doctors can maintain communication. Dr. Lucian Leape of Harvard University, a co-author of the report, believes that the medical establishment will have difficulty with this task.

(Communication outside of the office is important as well. Patients should be able to visit your website during off hours or have the ability to send you an email when necessary.)

In what was reported as one of the IOM report’s most alarming findings, it was suggested that it can take 17 years for important research discoveries to become accepted and used by the average doctor.

Thank goodness chiropractors are not average.

MSNBC: U.S. health-care system tangled maze