 |
 
 
|
The Future of Health CareModel
of an Evolutionary Medical Facility By Ryan Diener, L.Ac., Dipl. CH, MSOM, Holistic Health Associates
There
is so much debate regarding the state of our healthcare system today
and while everyone involved from the politicians to the economists, the
doctors to the patients all hope for improvement we are faced
with
the ever common dilemma of whose opinion is “the right one.”
Unfortunately (or fortunately), for all involved, the issue with
healthcare is an issue of consciousness, not policy.
So what would it take to evolve the healthcare system? In order to lower costs, improve results, reduce litigation and reduce our dependency on pharmaceuticals and major surgical procedures we must turn to evolutionary theory and a quote by none other than the great Albert Einstein himself who said, “in order to find solutions to a problem we must look beyond the consciousness that created it in the first place.” We must evolve the way we relate to our health as individuals in order to create a lasting change on the system itself. All other “solutions” are simply short term policies acting as band‐aids on a hemorrhage. The
paradigm shift I am talking about requires a shift of responsibility
from the policy makers to the patients and medical practitioners
themselves. Obviously much of the blame regarding our current situation
must go to the insurance carriers which have a business mentality first
and health mentality a distant second, but the purpose of this article
is to locate responsibility as it relates to patient and practitioner.
Practitioners
and medical facilities of evolutionary healthcare and the facilities
they practice in must be more interested in the physical health,
emotional stability and integrity of the patient than their own bottom
line. This point, often articulated by author and respected
acupuncturist Lonny Jarrett, cannot be understated. The motivation of
the practitioner will influence everything from treatment strategy and
bedside manner to office staff and business strategy. On a practical
level, practitioners and medical facilities must have a focus on
educating their patients on many aspects of health such as nutrition,
exercise and relationship to stress, and must also take the
responsibility of holding a patient to the values they profess to
believe in. Values such as commitment, development and change are easy
to speak about, but harder to live up to. From a true holistic
perspective though, one’s integrity is based on their willingness to
live up to the highest values they have seen to be true. As
practitioners we must have the courage to point out inertia,
victimization and resistance to change in our patients, within the
areas of health the patient has stated they wish to improve. The
practitioner must constantly strive for their own development, for the
practitioner can only state what is true with depth and weight from the
level of their own experience. To put this in terms of Evolutionary
Philosophy, the practitioner puts highest priority on a patient
becoming 51% more interested in taking responsibility for their own
health rather than being taken care of; there will be a shift in
relationship. This shift may not be a popular position with many of our
patients, and we may lose those not interested in taking responsibility
to other less diligent practitioners, but as noted by evolutionary
thinkers Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber, “Evolution is itself a very messy
business.” Imagine what would happen though, if every patient that was
lost because they did not want to hear that changing their diet was
essential to moving forward went to a practitioner that stressed the
exact same thing! There would be nobody to let the patient off the hook.
Patients of evolutionary healthcare must be willing to see their health through an ever enlarging perspective and must be interested in expanding their awareness of what is true about their health even if this is not currently perceivable to them. This is a difficult step as the patient must have faith in what the practitioner is saying and trust that over time their own effort will bear the fruit of transformation. They must also become interested in their place within this larger perspective. If patients can begin to see their own health as either an anchor or a rudder to an improved healthcare system, the emphasis on change shifts from the policy makers to the society at large. There are many challenges to this new paradigm which I will save for future elaboration, but consider this a broad introduction to where we must go if we truly wish to change the healthcare system. *
Below I offer a twist on the evolutionary stages of interior
consciousness used by Andrew Cohen, Ken Wilber and others as they
relate to the patients we see. There are many more stages than these,
but this is a section of the system we can all relate to starting from
least conscious at the bottom to most conscious at the top. As an
acupuncturist, the majority of patients I see need to make the leap
from what I am calling Worldcentric Aware to Worldcentric Care. This is
of course a broad generalization and should be recognized as such. For
more detail on this theory please refer to the systems of Spiral
Dynamics or 4 Quadrant Theory, currently expanded upon by Dr. Don Beck
and Ken Wilber respectively.
Kosmocentric
– A healthy life includes becoming ever more conscious as spiritual
health is a higher expression than emotional and physical health. This
increased awareness will manifest as an openness to see parts of the
self that were previously unconscious to the individual, because of an
interest in transcendence. Individuals at this level see their
improving health as an obvious necessity to maintaining the human body
as the vessel for consciousness to evolve.
Worldcentric
Care
– Individuals believe our health is part of a burden on the healthcare
system itself and as such on the planet that supports us. These
patients have an active health regimen and are conscious of nutrition
subtleties. Utilizing the best in traditional, holistic and modern
medicine, these patients are able to make more responsible choices
based on knowledge, care and integrity.
Worldcentric
Aware
– Health is important for the individual and as such preventative care
is valued. Patients often utilize an array of practitioners from
worldly traditions such as acupuncturists, chiropractors, massage
therapists and nutritionists. These patients often distrust the
unmindful or unnecessary aspects of modern medicine without
acknowledging the positive. Often choices are made out of pride,
self‐righteousness and intellectual knowledge, and the emphasis is on
feeling better rather than Being better.
Nationcentric
– Patients believe all answers to health lie in the latest medications,
surgeries, research and articles that are published. Weight is given to
those studies performed in their country of origin. Any information
coming from other countries is valid only upon reproduction.
Mythocentric
– Belief that no amount of medical attention is sufficient without
prayer and blessings bestowed upon the doctor, medicine, etc. It is
with God’s hand that healing will occur. This stage also relates to
many new age healings such as crystals or energetic healing when
applied without a deep foundation of practice or out of context to the
condition being treated.
Egocentric – Patient wants relief of symptoms at all cost without interest in considering any behavior which may have produced those symptoms or any repercussions the treatment may create. Ryan
Diener is an acupuncturist and herbalist who became cofounder and
Director of Holistic Health Associates in downtown Frederick. Ryan
enjoys teaching, counseling and working with his patients to improve
their mental and physical wellbeing, and engaging them to live up to
their highest potentials. He may be contacted at Acupuncture
Frederick MD or (301) 6201414.
|
||
 |