Question

Discuss an innovative idea in health care you think is overlooked that is either an alternative, simpler or less costly.

Answer 1

What if it was standard for patients to be given the option of group appointments as part of their care? People get longer consultations with their healthcare professional and have enough time to ask questions about their condition and treatment. They also learn from the experiences of people who are in a similar situation to them. Spontaneously, these interactions continue outside of the consultation room over coffee to share practical tips, hopes and fears.Opening up group consultations is an innovative idea that I think is overlooked but somehow is very good idea to ensure good health for public. This is simpler and less costly idea .When a patient meets with a health professional, it is almost always in a one-to-one format. Ever wondered why this is? Similar learning interactions tend to happen in groups. Take university, where seminars are a common format – students learn in a group, facilitated by a tutor. Here interactions are much richer, students build on each other’s understanding and learn from each other as much as from their tutor. This rarely happens in health, with the exception of group therapy, where patient interactions are recognised as being very valuable. Why aren’t group consultations in health a common occurrence? Everyone can understand how beneficial this could be. Group appointments create a relaxed environment where information-sharing, open discussion and collaborative problem-solving can happen.Group appointments can also be used to build social networks between patients around common issues, particularly those which socially isolate them. Patients ‘own’ the space, altering the power dynamic of traditional consultation models and making appointments more efficient for the clinician.Group appointments can be successfully used even for seemingly embarrassing and confidential issues. In India, health professionals are meeting the challenge of increased prostate cancer diagnoses in rural areas by visiting villages and conducting a single prostate consultation in front of the male village population. This is a highly efficient way of sharing vital information but also serves to destigmatise the issue, encouraging men to seek help if there is a problem.

Group appointments can also be a highly efficient use of time under scarce resources. For example: Hospitals in Sierre Leone have been conducting group consent classes before surgeries to save precious operation time.