Patients, as they are, are facts. How we care for and treat them reflect our values. There are gaps between patients and the numerous labels we give them, and between specific needs and care options. It is these gaps and our insistence on maintaining our focus on tools that leads to and results in problems and headaches. The points of focus are the labels and care options, systems and procedures, rules and checkboxes, line item codes and standards. The collection of these points continually expands as we find them to be inadequate. A collection of symptoms become labeled as an illness or malady as we discover more distinguishing characteristics that are not generally present or are affected by certain drugs or medications. We attach given labels to patients and then treat the respective labels. Do we value real patient care, or do we value our ability to label and treat and manipulate labels?

The patient is what lies behind the points. They are not characteristics or collections of representative labels, pixels in digital photos. One size does not fit all. True patient care involves connecting with individual patients and their respective bodies, lives, goals, families, and circumstances.

Values and Facts