Working upstream to achieve the quadruple aim

“None of us went into this work to achieve mediocrity, to achieve a sub-standard level of care,” said Rishi Manchanda, MD. “We’re in it for excellence. For professional satisfaction. For joy at work. For impact.” Although Dr. Manchanda was speaking to medical and health professions student s at a recent AMAAccelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium meeting, his talk held lessons for physicians at every stage of their careers. In fact, he said, the key to achieving satisfaction is achieving a higher standard of care. And he had advice for how to do that.“The better stream of care we can achieve has to involve understanding upstream issues,” he said. Upstream issues are the general socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions—including living and working conditions, social and community networks and individual lifestyle factors—that lead to health problems and health care utilization downstream. Dr. Manchanda, an internist and pediatrician and the president ofHealthBegins, a provider of upstream tools and resources, was speaking at the student-led Healthy Equity and Community-based Learning meeting hosted by the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine. His presentation, “Upstreamist Doctors,” focused on achieving the quadruple aim: better care, lower total medical costs, more satisfied patients and more satisfied physicians. The key, he said, is the integration of social determinants in health care.Social determinants do af...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news