Are We Losing the Personal Aspect of Health Care - Essay Example

Are we losing the personal aspect of health care and education with the increasing emphasis on technology and innovative therapies?    Has advanced technology made a significant difference in cost-effectiveness, clinical outcomes, survival rates, and quality of life?  Explain your answer In the past two decades, there has been tremendous importance being laid on healthcare- primarily affordable healthcare. We can broadly categorize healthcare into primary, secondary, and tertiary systems. Primary care is the family physician we go to, for general ailments.

Secondary care is a bit more specific, which entails hospitalization or surgery. Tertiary care is the extremely specialized treatment, which is required for delicate procedures or surgeries, for example, a bone marrow transplant, radiotherapy, etc (Bakker et al., 2009). In my opinion, we are not losing the personal aspect of health care, but redesigning it such that the patient himself is able to manage his health condition, with minimum external supervision. The advent of technology has made it easier for both, the patient, as well as the therapist to coordinate better, such that optimal healthcare is provided.

With automated computer systems and software, patient history can be collected and accessed at any point in time, not just during therapy, but also at a much later stage (Zhong & Moseley, 2007). In many cases, the ease of technology permits the transfer of a large amount of patient data to any part of the world, to be evaluated by experts in the field, when an opinion is required. Healthcare this day is centered on obtaining the right treatment, at the apt time, in the most economical manner.

It is true that individual attention cannot be given to a patient while undergoing procedures such as an MRI, CT, X-ray, or a minor cataract or appendectomy, as the number of these procedures carried out per day are numerous (Manly, 2000). In the day and age of rapid diagnosis, patients would much rather get evaluated by a battery of tests as rapidly as possible, as opposed to a healthcare worker elaborately taking the patient history, and trying to personally bond with him. Needless to say, the empathy factor should not be compromised, and care should be taken to make the patient comfortable and to put him at utmost ease.

Diagnostic procedures have evolved after trials, errors, and ample research, and have significantly reduced the operating costs associated with each run. Thus, there definitely is a tremendous improvement in the quality of healthcare and an increase in its affordability. The life expectancy of patients has increased, and there is a significant betterment in the rapidity by which a medical condition can be diagnosed. In order to serve the maximum number of people accurately in the shortest duration of time, it becomes mandatory to rely on computers and technology.

Simple clinical and diagnostic tests such as a complete blood count (CBC), blood sugar determination, or blood group typing, take just a matter of seconds with the advent of test technology and medical devices, which ordinarily would take a few hours. Technology has facilitated these procedures to such an extent, that it is now possible for the common man to determine these parameters and also many vital parameters such as blood pressure, from the comfort and confines of his home, thus completely eliminating the need to visit a primary care physician (Bakker et al., 2009). All of this would not have been possible without the intervention of science.

These devices and procedures lend a personal touch to the patient, in a manner, in which observations can be recorded and recalled at will and wish. Although the accuracy and precision are extremely fine, the price one pays for this technology is minuscule. Thus, in my opinion, we are not losing the personal aspect of healthcare and education to technology and computers. Modern methodology and advances in science have opened up many avenues, which offer affordable, rapid, and accurate systems in the diagnosis and management of health conditions.