About Prospective Health CareFrom Duke Prospective Health Care Club(Redirected from About PHC)
Prospective Health Care (PHC) is an emerging field focusing on detection and prevention of health problems before they occur. It is intended to address the need to reduce costs and improve patient care in the current health care system – especially with chronic conditions, which account for 75% of yearly health care costs and are often preventable. Advances in the science behind health care – including the fields genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics – have fueled the development of PHC. PHC can be summed up in by the “Four P's”: Prediction, Personalization, Prevention and Patient responsibility. From the patient's perspective, Prospective Health Care begins with visiting a doctor before becoming sick. The doctor will analyze the patient's genetic and environmental risk factors, as well as his family's and his own medical history. Based on this information, the doctor will work with the patient to create a personalized health care plan designed to offset his identified risk factors as much as possible, with the goal of preventing disease before it becomes symptomatic. The patient will be encouraged to take responsibility for following this health care plan, but will continue to have the support of their health care team, including their physician and often a specialized health care coach. The current health care system in the United States is disease-oriented and reactive – essentially, it encourages the opposite of PHC. Generally patients go the doctor only after they become sick, and doctors treat the direct cause of the disease with little participation by the patient – by this time, it is too late for the patient to change his lifestyle to reduce the risk of disease. Treating disease after it puts someone in the hospital is generally more costly than preventing it altogether – and generally results in worse outcomes for patients.
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