The Structure of Health Care Service

―So-called the Worried Well Patients and Psychosomatic Medicine―

Abstract

The desire of people to receive the best health care services without difficulty is an instinctive one. However, defects in public health education and the irresponsible or sometimes sensational medical information released by the mass media are causing an excessive increase in the population's demand for health care services. As a result, so-called "worried well" patients are increasing and health care institutions are crowded with such patients, who play a major role in increasing national medical spending. On the other hand, it is difficult to say that health care institutions are providing satisfactorily continuous, consecutive and comprehensive health care services. Needless to say, in dealing with worried well patients, the health care institutions should make efforts towards early detection of disease, if any, but at the same time, a psychosomatic approach should be made, considering patients as holistic people with both a mind and body. To this and, interdepartmental and interhospital liaison becomes very important. From the viewpoint of comprehensive health care services, the author presents in this paper such cases where the health care services provided are regarded as defective in terms of continuity and points out the importance of systematized health care information and systematized health care services at all health care levels from primary to tertiary.