Urgently needs radical shifts in research, evidence based guidance, and healthcare In January 2012 the Institute of Medicine in the United States published the report of a consensus study on living well with chronic illness. The report made 17 recommendations for public health approaches to chronic disease prevention, surveillance, data gathering, and chronic disease management programmes that would help improve quality of life and functioning and reduce disability.1 Although the report makes some interesting recommendations (box 1), particularly about research in chronic disease, and displays a welcome shift in emphasis to “living well” rather than reducing mortality, it falls short of making the necessary paradigm shift from a disease based model to one that focuses on care for patients. This shift in thinking is urgently needed to provide good care for patients with multiple comorbidities. #### Box 1 Summary of the Institute of Medicine report, Living Well with Chronic Illness 1 This detailed literature review uses exemplar conditions including arthritis, survivorship after cancer, chronic pain, dementia, depression, type 2 diabetes, post-traumatic disabling conditions, schizophrenia, and vision and hearing loss to give broad recommendations. Its main recommendations are:
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Mangin et al. (2012) studied this question.