2017 Volume 16 Issue 1 Pages 22-32
In the United States, various ambitious movements have been being taken place in the field of healthcare. While it is not impossible to suppose their respective outlines from such keywords representing those initiatives as “Complementary Medicine,” “Integrated Medicine,” “Telemedicine” and “Precision Medicine,” it is not easy to understand their mutual relationships and overall trends in a broader perspective. As a matter of fact, there is another keyword in recent healthcare in the US, “Patient-Centered Medicine,” which didn't attract much attention in Japan since it sounded too ordinary and commonplace. In this article, we attempt to describe the recent trends of US healthcare in a comprehensive manner using the history and practice of “Patient-Centered Medicine” as a clue. In conclusion, we report that “Patient-Centered Medicine” being promoted in the US these days is a very innovative one which may totally change paradigm of healthcare, and it may be called as “Comprehensive Medicine in American Way.”
