Is Primary Care Really Under Siege?

A panel during the Cleveland Clinic 2018 Medical Innovation Summit addressed the possible future of primary care. The concept of the primary care physician is under siege from a number of things. An uneven payment system, millennials seeking out other options; and the rise of wearable devices all play a role in the way primary care will be delivered in the future. “I think we would all agree, and if we were to ask ourselves, when we had our last primary care experience, that it wasn’t particularly ideal,” Anil Jain, MD, VP & Chief Health Information Officer, IBM Watson, said during the panel. “The average patient, when they’re talking to their primary care doctor has about 11 seconds to get their chief complaint out, before they get interrupted. The average primary care doctor has about 15 minutes with a patient and most of them spend most their time on the [Electronic Health Record] than face-to-face.” Physicians also spend nearly 90 minutes after work, reviewing EMR files according to a 2017 study published in the Annals of Family Medicine. This phenomenon is known as Pajama time and helps contribute to physician burnout. “We know that primary care is under siege,” said Jain, who also served as the moderator of the panel. “We have a lot of transformation happening in health. Primary care doctors and primary car...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Digital Health Source Type: news