Blog 3

            In the event of an unexpected illness, individuals turn to healthcare professionals. If they are lucky, they are insured and have a regular primary care physician. Often anxious, they explain their symptoms to their provider, hoping for answers. Being so uneasy, they forget the most important manifestation of this puzzling illness, leaving the provider to run dozens of unnecessary tests. In the article, "What Healthcare Should Look Like", the author paints a very real picture of the current state of healthcare and where we need to take it.

           Our healthcare system lacks genuine patient care. We trust healthcare professionals with our lives, but often, office visits are unpleasant. Waiting rooms are often uncomfortable, crowded, and bleak, failing to reassure the patients. In the article, “What Healthcare Should Look Like,” the author describes a waiting room full of dead plants and seven-year-old magazines. This lack of care for a patient's first impression of an office does not help ease their worries.

          Additionally, appointments are short and time and again leave patients with more questions than answers. These practices discourage patients from getting their routine screenings putting the patients at risk for missing the early warning signs of a serious illness. Most of the time when one visits the doctor, they are coming for a disease. Long wait times in a cramped waiting room deters patients from seeking care at an early stage.

         Quality patient care must extend to the waiting rooms, where patients will spend most of their visit. By making the waiting room a more inviting, patients will be calmer and be able to speak more freely with the providers. Waiting rooms are the first physical impression for newcomers. A poorly maintained entrance suggests either a lack of ability or a lack of care in ensuring new patients feel welcomed into the practice. With health care in its current state, a trip to the doctors’ office entails long lines, dealing with the complexities of insurance, and the anxiety preceding the diagnosis of a condition. Providing a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing environment at the outset of the doctor-patient interaction is a relatively straightforward method of building a foundation for positive health outcomes. For these reasons, I agree with the author of this article and advise my classmates and others to read into it as well.

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/what-healthcare-should-look-like/?searchResultPosition=5&mtrref=undefined&gwh=70E7A7F296B60F3C2C030C1FAD9A0EF6&gwt=pay&assetType=REGIWALLArticle by a group of Authors,OP-ED Contributor, at the New York Times