Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables
- Figures
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- Introduction: Charting a Sustainable Path for the Twenty-First Century Pharmaceutical Industry
- PART I PROFITS, PATIENTS' RIGHTS, AND SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS: THE ETHICS OF CLINICAL RESEARCH CONDUCTED IN PRIVATE ENTERPRISES
- PART II MARKETING AND THE EFFICIENT UTILIZATION OF HEALTHCARE RESOURCES: ETHICAL AND PUBLIC POLICY CHALLENGES
- Introduction to Part II
- 8 Ethics and Prescribing: The Clinician's Perspective
- 9 The Regulation of Prescription Drug Promotion
- 10 Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs: A Policy Dilemma
- 11 Off-Label Communications and Prescription Drugs
- 12 The Need for Better Health Information: Advancing the Informed Patient in Europe
- 13 Who Should Get Access to Which Drugs? An Ethical Template for Pharmacy Benefits
- 14 The Application of Cost-Effectiveness and Cost–Benefit Analysis to Pharmaceuticals
- PART III PATENTS, PRICING, AND EQUAL ACCESS
- PART IV CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: CHARTING A SUSTAINABLE PATH FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
- Notes
- Index
12 - The Need for Better Health Information: Advancing the Informed Patient in Europe
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables
- Figures
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- Introduction: Charting a Sustainable Path for the Twenty-First Century Pharmaceutical Industry
- PART I PROFITS, PATIENTS' RIGHTS, AND SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS: THE ETHICS OF CLINICAL RESEARCH CONDUCTED IN PRIVATE ENTERPRISES
- PART II MARKETING AND THE EFFICIENT UTILIZATION OF HEALTHCARE RESOURCES: ETHICAL AND PUBLIC POLICY CHALLENGES
- Introduction to Part II
- 8 Ethics and Prescribing: The Clinician's Perspective
- 9 The Regulation of Prescription Drug Promotion
- 10 Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs: A Policy Dilemma
- 11 Off-Label Communications and Prescription Drugs
- 12 The Need for Better Health Information: Advancing the Informed Patient in Europe
- 13 Who Should Get Access to Which Drugs? An Ethical Template for Pharmacy Benefits
- 14 The Application of Cost-Effectiveness and Cost–Benefit Analysis to Pharmaceuticals
- PART III PATENTS, PRICING, AND EQUAL ACCESS
- PART IV CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: CHARTING A SUSTAINABLE PATH FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
- Notes
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
The relationship between patients and physicians or other health professionals has steadily changed over time from an authoritarian, paternal relationship to one in which the patient is more empowered and involved in treatment choices. As the public has become more “consumerist,” people are less accepting of a passive role in their healthcare. This change allows healthcare decisions to reflect the patient's own values and priorities rather than those presumed by clinicians.
As the dynamics between doctors and patients change, the relationships among professionals are also shifting toward a “team-based” model of healthcare delivery that draws upon the range of skills and expertise needed to address health problems, particularly chronic illness. The team-based delivery model, although it brings certain benefits, can also create tensions among different parties to a patient's care program, and poses the risk that important health information for the patient may somehow get lost in the process.
The term “informed patient” presumes that people with illnesses (and healthy people) both deserve and need appropriate health information. An informed patient is enabled to become involved in his or her own healthcare, to seek out the best care, to decide on the best courses of action, and to follow the agreed-upon course of treatment. The informed patient concept, as used in this chapter, also includes non–professionally trained caregivers (often family members), because they may serve as proxies for an incapacitated patient and are often part of the social unit making decisions for the future.
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- Information
- Ethics and the Pharmaceutical Industry , pp. 196 - 205Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005