Op-ed: Care for patients with multiple chronic conditions needs to focus on patient priorities

To treat patients with multiple chronic conditions well, clinicians will need to move away from disease-focused metrics and toward patient-centric ones. An op-ed published in the Annals of Internal Medicine makes the case that, despite some progress, care for patients with multiple chronic conditions still suffers from a misalignment of clinician and patient priorities. Specifically, doctors need to embrace the idea that they care for patients, rather than diseases, according to Mary Tinetti, M.D., chief of geriatrics at Yale School of Medicine. “Most decision-making and care is still focused on the individual diseases, and not what patients want necessarily or need,” she explains, adding that although treatment has improved, “We still have a very long way to go.”