The Challenge & Choice program empowers physicians and patients to make superior decisions about health issues and healthcare delivery systems.
Through medical insight awareness training, the Challenge & Choice program encourages physicians to create a practice format that reinvigorates the doctor-patient relationship while advocating a more meaningful role for patients in the decision-making process.
Dr. Robert G Schwartz, M.D. has created the Challenge and Choice program with the goal of enhancing medical insight awareness of the intangible factors that are responsible for health care decision-making.
Patients with chronic disease can face a number of difficult choices and challenges. A relationship with their illness that is characterized by loss and suffering may become evident. Many feel they have been forced to surrender cherished activities because of pain. They may have seen multiple physicians in an effort to identify and resolve the source of their condition but are dissatisfied with the results.
Perhaps they have searched the Internet and books for answers and hope. Throughout this process (some call it a journey), emotions such as anger, frustration, depression, and fear may occur. When these feelings have power over the afflicted, they also affect the decision-making process. Thus, the way each patient relates to his illness can influence health care decisions.
The Challenge & Choice program provides patients with written, online, and one-on-one resources to enable them to make superior decisions. Through the program, patients gain awareness into which decisions are more challenging than others. That in turn provides motivation to develop the skills needed to make the right choice for their own personal needs.
Not every decision is troublesome. The same set of conditions can be a challenge for one person and a non-event for another. It is in the knowing of when it counts, or has special meaning, that both the patient and physician can develop empathy for the situation and more appropriately participate in a shared decision-making model. Likewise, someone who has to live with the outcome will be more likely to obtain a better outcome and a higher level of satisfaction if they participate in their care in a way that is meaningful to their personal life.
Patients and doctors work together in the Challenge and Choice program during office visits, through shared resources on the Internet, and via administrative protocols that strengthen the doctor-patient relationship. In this setting, emphasis shifts toward a patient-centered model of health care and away from a payer-centered model.
By using all of the components of the Challenge and Choice program, the physician's office can become more effective in treating patients, and their relationship to their illness, while patients can become more effective in communicating their health care needs and participating responsibly in decision making.
Challenge and Choice In Action
Physicians, patients and interested organizations who would like to see the Challenge and Choice program in action may visit the office of Piedmont Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, P.A, in Greenville, South Carolina. Here the principles of the program are in active use every day. You can also log onto the web page of PPM&R at www.piedmontpmr.com.
For more information about Dr. Robert G. Schwartz, the founder of Piedmont Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, and visionary behind the Challenge and Choice program, click the Dr. Schwartz tab within this site.
You may directly contact Dr. Schwartz by registering with the encrypted email service found on the home page of www.piedmontpmr.com.
