From "Providing Services" to "Meeting Needs"

Medicine has evolved in ways that are both positive (more effective therapies) and negative (impersonal, fragmented, and expensive). This blog discusses a strategy for improving healthcare by reframing our fundamental goal from the traditional "providing services" to a more suitable modern approach: "meeting needs".

The importance of meeting needs may seem self-evident, and one might assume it's already the fundamental goal of healthcare. However, the focus has always been on providing services, which worked well for most of medicine's history.

Historically, a 'patient' (from Latin and Greek roots meaning 'sufferer') sought care for acute problems addressed in one or a few encounters. Providing services effectively met needs. But this conflation is no longer appropriate.