This goal includes efforts to help our patients maintain good Health, generally without coming into our hospitals and clinics. Historically, much of the effort here has been accomplished by Public Health agencies—clean water, immunizations, and disease surveillance—ensuring the environment supports the maintenance of Health within a community.In the military, and specifically for uniformed personnel, Maintaining Health equates to maintaining readiness—preparedness to execute the missions directed by our nation's leaders.

What I have found, though, is that from a patient's perspective, the vast majority of Maintaining Health occurs at home and work, at school and at the gym, in a supermarket and when deciding where to stop to eat. In fact, in the absence of a specific illness, injury, or disease, the most important part of Maintaining Health is the thousands of decisions individuals make every day. In the Army, the average Soldier seeks health care for about 100 minutes a year—five 20-minute appointments on average. Our challenge is to find ways to positively influence the Health decisions they make in the other 525 500 minutes when they are not in our hospitals and clinics.

My challenge to all of us in health care is to talk to patients about those decisions and their ramifcations for Maintaining Health. Because those decisions occur outside of our hospitals and clinics, we have to find ways to engage patients out in their “Lifespace.” This is new territory for us, but we have to engage where the decisions are made.

Restoring Health

This goal represents what most of us would consider our jobs as health care professionals: to intervene once illness, injury, or disease occurs and return a patient to a higher Health status. We often do this through tests, procedures, medications, and rehabilitative therapies—primarily in our hospitals and clinics. This is where the healing happens. Or does it? I would submit that our interventions are required to Restore Health; but most healing occurs at home, at work, or at school—in the individual's Lifespace.

We should be thinking about the environment into which we are releasing our patients after hospital discharge or departure from outpatient clinics. We can positively influence healing and thus enhance Restoring Health, but only if we take the time to learn about and account for the environment of our patients' Lifespace.

With kind regards

Sophia

Managing Editor

Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education

This goal includes efforts to help our patients maintain good Health, generally without coming into our hospitals and clinics. Historically, much of the effort here has been accomplished by Public Health agencies—clean water, immunizations, and disease surveillance—ensuring the environment supports the maintenance of Health within a community.In the military, and specifically for uniformed personnel, Maintaining Health equates to maintaining readiness—preparedness to execute the missions directed by our nation's leaders.

What I have found, though, is that from a patient's perspective, the vast majority of Maintaining Health occurs at home and work, at school and at the gym, in a supermarket and when deciding where to stop to eat. In fact, in the absence of a specific illness, injury, or disease, the most important part of Maintaining Health is the thousands of decisions individuals make every day. In the Army, the average Soldier seeks health care for about 100 minutes a year—five 20-minute appointments on average. Our challenge is to find ways to positively influence the Health decisions they make in the other 525 500 minutes when they are not in our hospitals and clinics.

My challenge to all of us in health care is to talk to patients about those decisions and their ramifcations for Maintaining Health. Because those decisions occur outside of our hospitals and clinics, we have to find ways to engage patients out in their “Lifespace.” This is new territory for us, but we have to engage where the decisions are made.

Restoring Health

This goal represents what most of us would consider our jobs as health care professionals: to intervene once illness, injury, or disease occurs and return a patient to a higher Health status. We often do this through tests, procedures, medications, and rehabilitative therapies—primarily in our hospitals and clinics. This is where the healing happens. Or does it? I would submit that our interventions are required to Restore Health; but most healing occurs at home, at work, or at school—in the individual's Lifespace.

We should be thinking about the environment into which we are releasing our patients after hospital discharge or departure from outpatient clinics. We can positively influence healing and thus enhance Restoring Health, but only if we take the time to learn about and account for the environment of our patients' Lifespace.

With kind regards

Sophia

Managing Editor

Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education