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Healthcare that is adapted to each patient

With knowledge brought fully up to date via rigorous and independent continuing medical education, healthcare professionals can then take each patient's situation into account, to share decision-making with them.

In its special summer edition, the independent French medical journal La revue Prescrire has published a collection of texts that is both light-hearted and serious, challenging healthcare professionals to think about the "fundamentals" of their practice.

After an opening section reviewing a few principles that are always useful, the second section underscores the need to move forward safely in the relationship with the patient.

For example, to read scientific articles, or to ensure the quality of one's continuing medical education, it is useful to keep in mind a few basics in order to properly interpret what one reads and hears.

It's a question of being better equipped to make decisions based on solid evidence.

But clinical data alone are not enough to have a good practice. It is also important to take into account a multitude of emotional, social, financial, physical and other personal factors that vary for each patient.

Prescrire has also brought together in this issue some basic texts on how to adapt healthcare to the situation of each patient: how to share treatment goals with patients, how to evaluate the harm-benefit balance for the particular situation of each patient, and to share decision-making, taking into account the knowledge acquired and the uncertainties, both the rational and the factors that depend on the patient, on their preferences, etc.

©Prescrire 1 August 2016

"Bâtir des relations de soins : Une randonnée par étapes" Rev Prescrire 2016; 36 (394). View the table of contents (Free, in French)
View the table of contents
of the special issue
of French medical journal
La revue Prescrire
Free (in French)

See also:

Treatment objectives:
should be shared
with patients
(November 2012)
Free

Determining the
harm-benefit balance
of an intervention:
for each patient
Prescrire Int 2014
23 (154): 274-277.
Pdf, free