2 classmates discussion responses, 125 words each with 1 reference each.

One: Consumerism in healthcare is a strategy encouraging and enabling people to take charge of their person health through four key principles (Burns, Bradley & Weiner, 2018, p. 350). These four principles are knowledge of health status and needs, informed decision making, wise use of healthcare dollars, and confident and active participation in one’s own healthcare decisions and treatment choices (Burns, Bradley & Weiner, 2018, p. 350. With consumerism, patients are encouraged to demand better healthcare and be their own advocate. This impacts healthcare because providers are held accountable by their patients and therefore can have a more difficult time shrugging off patients they do not think have any diagnosable illness. Patients can afford to focus on their own concerns, learn only about their condition, and have the inherent knowledge of living with a disease that their physicians lack (Calabretta, 2002). Being able to dedicate more time to one’s own case, a patient can research and learn about treatments and trials that a provider otherwise may not have read about. Personally, I believe in consumerism for healthcare because patients need to be educated about their illness and the treatment plan that their provider gives them to better relay information back to the provider about the success or failure of the plan.

However, the downfall of consumerism in healthcare is that it can hurt the relationship between healthcare providers and their patients. Providers could view patients taking charge of their own health as challenging their authority. They use professional reasoning and knowledge to determine the best course of action for the patient (Illiffe & Manthorpe, 2020). Having a patient insisting that he/she truly knows what is going on and how to fix the illness can ruin the relationship between a provider and patient if the provider does not agree. Also, providers only have a certain amount of time dedicated to spending with each patient. Healthcare professionals work to keep the appointments within the time limits. If every patient comes into the appointment with a list of topics to discuss and research they want the provider to review before leaving the appointment, then the providers will have to lessen the number of patients seen in a day.

Refernces:

Burns, L. R., Bradley, E. H., & Weiner, B. J. (2018). Shortell and Kaluzny’s health care management: Organization design & behavior. 7th ed. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning.

Calabretta N. (2002). Consumer-driven, patient-centered health care in the age of electronic information. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 90(1), 32–37.

Iliffe, S., & Manthorpe, J. (2020). Medical consumerism and the modern patient: successful ageing, self-management and the ‘fantastic prosumer’. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 113(9), 339–345. https://doi.org/10.1177/0141076820911574

Two: The idea of healthcare consumerism is commonly perceived to mean individuals proactively utilizing dependable, pertinent data and suitable innovation to settle on better-educated choices about their medical services alternatives, both inside and outside the clinical setting. “Consumerism is the idea that increasing consumption of goods and services purchased in the market is always a desirable goal and that a person’s wellbeing and happiness depends fundamentally on obtaining consumer goods and material possessions.” (Robert Kelly). Patients are considered goods; patients are referred to physicians that are widely known but they could be the primary doctor’s best friend etc. The healthcare field is all about sales, yes, it is human life but it’s not any different then picking out vegetables at the grocery store. The grocery store supplies different vegetables, similar to the Tampa Bay area having all kinds of doctors and specialties. If the patient/consumers job to figure out which are the ripe vegetables and which are the quality physicians. “Context is critical because the lowest price does not ensure an influx of coverage, volume, and sales. (Nagy). Quantity is not always better then quality. For example, in my line of work there are several vein mills out there with big names that see big quantities of people but do not give quality work.

References:

Nagy, B. (2006). Consumerism in healthcare drives care managers to rethink communication strategies. Managed Healthcare Executive, 16(9), 68–70.

Robert C Kelly (2020) “Consumerism” Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/consumerism.asp