If you were to design a health care system from scratch, and began with the people you wanted to form key alliances with, who would you choose? Doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, podiatrists...? In the past, the choice might have been easy. Health care was strictly hierarchical and doctors were at the top of the pyramid. No health professional could become established without the patronage of the medical profession. But is that still true today? Health care consumers now have much greater choice when it comes to health providers and they are exercising their choice in innovative and interesting ways. Over-the-counter remedies, alternative and complementary therapies, … [Read more...] about New: Alliances
New: Organisations
If you are someone who follows this blog, uses Facebook, Twitter or other social media like email and texting, you may have become quite familiar with the idea that people are now networking in ways that were impossible only a few years ago. A friend of mine was telling me the other day about her eight-year-old son, who was now the embodiment of a digital native. He knew how to log onto their computer, how to search for school projects, and how to use his tablet in the classroom to draw, add, compose and write. She was wondering what the future of work and study would be for him, and whether today's lecturers and practitioners knew what they were in for. According to a report last … [Read more...] about New: Organisations
New: humanities
Although it’s going to be hard to accept, particularly by those people currently striving to make a difference in the profession, but it probably won’t be this generation of physiotherapists that bring about the radical change necessary to prepare the profession for the new world of 21st century health care. There are any number of reasons for this: Physiotherapists are, by and large, a relatively conservative bunch, who don’t instigate radical change Physiotherapy is highly respected and well patronised, so there are few indicators that we need to change much Most people in positions of authority have received a traditional training, and tend to like things the way that they are, … [Read more...] about New: humanities