Editor’s note: This commentary is by Dr. Anna Carey, who lives in Burlington and works at a family practice in Cambridge.
UVM’s presentation to the Green Mountain Care Board of its “Inpatient Bed Replacement Project” has four objectives.
Quality: To meet the first objective, the University of Vermont Medical School intends to build “a new inpatient building that is highly patient-centered.” As a family doctor in Cambridge, I am familiar with this highly touted and relatively recently branded concept of “patient centered care” as if previously we couldn’t care less about the patient. But remember we have bandwagons to board. (Yet, I do kinda remember decades ago in medical school hearing about some old guy Hippocrates’ riff on caring for the patient.) But no matter, we’re listening to UVM Medical Center officials present “the cutting edge.” Apparently the proposed seven-story inpatient building will meet the newest contemporary care standards and the building itself will be “highly patient-centered.” Now this is really neat. When checking into a concierge-style single room at UVM Medical Center, one is treated in isolation. No more pesky roommates, rather a gated community atmosphere.
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