Medical Information Online, Social Wellbeing, and Can the Web Decrease Waiting Times?
More people get medical information from the Internet (48%) than from their doctor (43%).
If asked to pay only what they can afford, how much would the uninsured pay for an office visit? Hint: less than the doctor’s overhead.
Should the definition of health include “social wellbeing”? WHO says yes. I vote no!
Using the Web to curb waiting times. Cost: $50 per doctor per month.
Receiving a text from your physician’s office alerting you to whether your doctor is running late or a few minutes early, sounds like a great idea. Some urgent care clinics use this type of service to alert you when to come in. However, I wonder if it will really make a difference. Unless you live or work only a few minutes from the clinic, it’s probably not feasible for many people. Furthermore, once clinics run into problems with patients being late after being notified, the lead time will increase and we will be back to where we are now.
If the WHO uses such a board definition of health, then are they advocating that everyone get “social wellbeing” check-ups? It seems to me that it’s relatively easy to monitor someone’s glucose to see how their diabetes is doing, but it’s much harder to measure how their social life is progressing.
And if socialization is a measure of wellbeing, then do you consider someone who just got a divorce (or any other major social change) to be diseased?
And how do we define “good choices”? I think that most people make poor choices in some areas of their lives, but then again, we all do.
Basically, doctors aren’t paid like other professionals. They really aren’t paid to hand out information.
Virginia, What WHO means be social wellbeing is socialism. People should feel better if there is a nanny state controlling their lives.
Interesting that WHO is talking about social wellbeing rather than mental wellbeing. The latter is about whether someone is capable mentally of engaging in activities of daily life. I agree with Bruce that social wellbeing is really a euphemism for socialism. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a government agency’s business to worry about people’s social behavior.
Does that mean that people who are not comforted by socialism are ill?