Optimizing Outcomes in Primary Care: We Cannot Spell ‘Precision’ Without ‘Person’

Healthcare providers are becoming increasingly more aware of the benefits realized by engaging the health seeker. The literature is clear on the effectiveness of including “the soft skills” of motivational interviewing, of collaborative goal setting, and in utilizing readiness to change models. These soft skills have a hard science in behavioral economics, psychology and more recently in the systemic effects witnessed throughout a person’s physiology when they feel recognized and included. As healthcare experiences provider burnout and barriers of efficiency, it can be tempting for the trend of protocols to dominate, alleviating both time and decision making from providers with compassion fatigue. It is the convergence of these pressures, along with the advances in “the soft skills” and a simultaneous rise in (demand for) precision medicine and precision rehabilitation, that we begin to see the chasm between personalized care and precision care. This article details the elusive nature of societal wellness, disease and disability prevention by utilizing a bridge of personalizing care. Affording health seekers and providers alike the opportunity to leverage the science of behavioral change will require a collaboration between patient and provider, one that may even alleviate some of the burdens that providers presently experience.