ABSTRACT
The physician's role must change its focus from intervention to prevention through patient education and counseling. The ability to convey the elements required for enhancement of a patient's lifestyle will become a contemporary physician's "black bag". The chapter creates a seamless system for delivery of medical care that is consumer focused and programmed for the development of healthy lifestyles. It designs medical care and operational systems specifically to meet patients' needs. The chapter evaluates consumer satisfaction, disease-free lives, and enhanced lifestyles. Some hospital organizations have tended to bypass physicians, operating a sort of "gotcha doctors" type of program. The chapter represents regional newspapers' public interpretations that describe the essence of the prevention-oriented program to the Minneapolis-St. Paul and surrounding communities, and national coverage in The WallStreet Journal. Integrated physician hospital models need to be developed on the basis of mutual benefit as patient members' needs are most effectively met.
