Optimized Primary Care for Complex Patients

Abstract

This book presents the efforts of the group of dedicated, patient-centered physicians introduced in Chapter 1, who 10 years ago organized to pool their training and experiences, and meet regularly to discuss patient care challenges and issues of care delivery. They also independently (yet presciently) understood that a major contemporary encumbrance for systems of clinical care delivery is the care of “complex patients” and the associated “complex cases.” These are the patients who are “everyone’s” patient, yet “no one’s” patient. These are patients who “do not get much better and rarely go away.” The antidote for their suffering transcends medical specialty. Thus, they cannot be pigeonholed as “internal medicine patients” or “psychiatric patients.” As such, a collaborative approach for patient management involving collegial support for and among the treating physicians is an optimum approach.