Doctors and senior patients need to work together to create and implement personalized care plans that will provide long-term benefits. HealthMaker Debra Whitman describes the importance of tailored medicine in this video.
A piece of it is information, I think one of the great things about the Internet and the types of shows that you're putting together, people can go and learn often at their own pace and often a very conversational level about the issues in healthcare. Now they still need to here from the doctor because it needs to be personalized to to them on their own situation.
So we need doctors to communicate with individuals help them to understand their choices, understand the risks involved with the range of choices, particularly when we are looking on the aging population the most invasive procedure may not be always the best, 10 or 12 drugs are always better than two or three.
So, having a system that's focused on the health of an individual and the care of the individual is really crucial.
Debra Whitman is AARP’s executive vice president for policy, strategy and international affairs. She is an authority on aging issues with experience in national policymaking, domestic and international research and the political process.
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