Biomedical subjects

Regina Benjamin

Publications and source records attributed to Regina Benjamin.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Physician health and wellness.

BACKGROUND: Impaired physician health can have a direct impact on patient health care and safety. In the past, problems of alcoholism and substance abuse among physicians have received more attention than other conditions-usually in the form of discipline. While patient safety is paramount, the medical profession may be more successful in achieving the required standards by fostering a culture committed to health and wellness as well as supporting impaired physicians. OBJECTIVE: To develop ethical guidelines regarding physician health and wellness. METHODS: The American Medical Association's (AMA's) Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs developed recommendations based on the AMA's Code of Medical Ethics, an analysis of relevant Medline-indexed articles, and comments from experts. The report's recommendations were adopted as policy of the Association in December 2003. RESULTS: Individually, physicians can promote their personal health and wellness through healthy living habits, including having a personal physician. The medical profession can foster health and wellness if its members are taught to identify colleagues in need of assistance and initiate appropriate methods of intervention, including referrals to physician health programs. CONCLUSIONS: Physicians whose health or wellness is compromised should seek appropriate help and engage in honest self-assessment of their ability to practice. The medical profession should provide an environment that helps to maintain and restore health and wellness. Physicians need to ensure that impaired colleagues promptly modify or cease practice until they can resume professional patient care. In addition, physicians may be required to report impaired colleagues who continue to practice despite reasonable offers of assistance.

Ethics, Professional↗

PubMed2006

Physicians' ethical responsibilities in addressing racial and ethnic healthcare disparities.

Patients belonging to racial and ethnic minority populations continue to receive lesser-quality healthcare relative to other patients, even when controlling for relevant demographic variables. Such disparities represent a significant challenge for physicians who are ethically committed to serving all patients equally, irrespective of personal characteristics. Accordingly, this report explores the ethical obligations of individual physicians and the medical profession as they pertain to racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare. To address these disparities, the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs recommends that physicians customize the provision of medial care to meet the needs and preferences of individual patients. Moreover, physicians must learn to recognize racial and ethnic healthcare disparities and critically examine their own practices to ensure that inappropriate considerations do not affect clinical judgment. Physicians can also work to eliminate racial and ethnic healthcare disparities by encouraging diversity within the profession, continuing to investigate healthcare disparities, and supporting the development of appropriate quality measures.

Ethics, Medical↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Technology for community health alliances.

A community health alliance brings together divergent interests within a community for the betterment of personal and population health. In this report we describe how a community responsive strategy in Chicago is facilitating the improvement of healthcare by providing local information of what needs to be done, supporting change at the practice level to meet these needs, and initiating community-wide approaches to manage prevalent and important needs without waiting for direct involvement of health professionals.

Chicago↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Patients report positive impacts of collaborative care.

Collaborative Care refers to a partnership between healthcare professionals and patients who feel confident to manage their health conditions. Using an Internet-based assessment of health needs and healthcare quality, we surveyed 24,609 adult Americans aged 19 to 69 who had common chronic diseases or significant dysfunction. In these patients, we examined the association of Collaborative Care with specific measures for treatment effect, disease control, prevention, and economic impacts. These measures were adjusted for respondents' demographic characteristics, burden of illness, health behaviors, and overall quality of healthcare. Only 21% of respondents participated in good Collaborative Care, 36% attained fair Collaborative Care, and 43% experienced poor Collaborative Care. Regardless of overall care quality or the respondents' personal characteristics, burden of illness, or health behaviors, good Collaborative Care was associated with better control of blood pressure, blood glucose level, serum cholesterol level, and treatment effectiveness for pain and emotional problems. Some preventive actions were better, and some adverse economic impacts of illness were mitigated.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Postscript: health disparity and collaborative care.

In this report, we compare healthcare processes for patients with low (n = 7467) and adequate financial status (n = 43,701) after adjustment for age, gender, burden of illness, and health behaviors. Patients with low financial status were 10% to 30% less likely to report good service and collaborative care; they report that markers of disease management and prevention were 7% to 18% below the levels of patients with adequate income. From the patient perspective, these results confirm that inadequate financial status has a broad and adverse influence on health and healthcare. Technology for patient-centered, collaborative care alone will not remedy the problem of health disparity.

Cooperative Behavior↗