The emphasis today is on relatively low-tech screens for signs of incipient chronic disease -- adult-onset diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, cancer and the like. To help doctors track these indicators, the preventive services task force revises its guidelines continuously. Recently, for example, the task force recommended that doctors screen patients for depression. The screen is simple, almost a casual conversation -- How's work Are you feeling stressed Are you sleeping ... Many people who are depressed don't go to a psychiatrist looking for insight. Most are seen in primary-care situations.
Quotes about primary-care (2 Quotes)
Forty percent of emergency-room patients at Mercy Medical Center don't have a primary-care provider. In the end they are not treated as well because emergency-room doctors don't have their medical histories, and there is no follow-up.