Module Four: Health Leadership

     

Health is the Goal-Not Simply Providing Services

Critical care is usually perceived as more intriguing and valuable

Within the labor-intensive world of medicine exists a temptation to value the means more than the end. For example, providing emergency medical services for childhood illnesses may appear prudent, but this activity must be subordinate to the ultimate mission of promoting health. The latter demands a broader vision that must include considering means of preventing or even eradicating childhood illnesses. Never the less, it can be challenging to keep the goal of health at the forefront because:

• Neither health status nor the impact of preventive interventions is easily measured. On the other hand, quantifying the amount of curative care given, such as the number of patients treated or surgeries performed, is relatively easy to do. "All health programs suffer from the same basic difficulty. Whereas project inputs (resources) and service outputs (i.e., number of immunizations given, babies delivered) can be counted, it is difficult to measure the underlying goal of improved health" (Basch, 1999, p. 220).
  
  
• Caring for people who are critically ill is usually perceived as more intriguing and valuable than is disease prevention or health promotion. A longitudinal campaign for elimination of blindness, for example, has enormous potential to increase well-being but is rarely considered "newsworthy."
  
  
• Similarly, curative care specialists, such as surgeons, are usually more revered in the public eye than are those specialists in public health or primary care. This esteem, along with higher financial compensation, often draws a disproportionate number of individuals into the curative care specialties.

Institute for International Medicine is a Missouri registered, 501c(3) recognized, non-profit corporation.
INMED is a registered trademark of the Institute for International Medicine.
All content found in the INMED On-Line International Medicine Course is copyrighted 2009. All rights reserved.