La mediazione trasformativa nell’era della patient revolution. Un modello per la gestione del rischio clinico e legale nelle ASL italiane

Abstract

[Transformative mediation in the era of the patient revolution. A model for the management of clinical and legal risk in Italian health facilities]

Nowadays, too many patients do not perceive that their doctors are exclusively dedicated to care them. This is probably because current health systems are too focused on physicians and diseases, rather than on patients. Such systems are also expensive, fragmented, inefficient and often cynical, generating not only the anger but also the willingness to bring legal claims from many patients. Many scholars, in fact, claim that "too much medicine" can bring more harm than good to the patients and to the health systems themselves, therefore promoting a more sober and respectful medicine. This is the vision of the "patient revolution" and the idea that inspires some other movements that aim to break the vicious circle of greed and cynicism that damages not only patients but also health professionals. Within the same vicious circle, an exponential increase in litigations takes place, as an additional negative effect of the system focused on the disease and on the doctors instead of on the patient.

In the present article, we assume that a greater participation of the patient in the choices concerning his/her own health is the fertile ground in which concrete solutions can be found to many problems arising from the current medicine. We therefore analyze the main advantages of active patient participation, which in turn generate a reduction in health conflicts. Based on this analysis, we propose a model in which through various approaches, tools and methods - starting from the upstream prevention of the conflicts - we can also manage them downstream, for the benefit of both patients and health professionals. Finally, we show that within this framework, transformative mediation is an essential approach for weakening many legal disputes and repairing the relational damage generated upstream, where communication has failed or is completely lacking in the clinical practice.