Big Words Kinda Suck

It's Saturday. I get to use really un-academic words. I'm not into using slang gratuitously, though. We really do have a big problem on our hands.

Talking Trash?

Daphne Swancutt called some of the health care people out on their inaccessible language over at the Just So You Know... Blog. Here are a few exerpts:

I don’t know, maybe it’s my imagination, but I’ve noticed how as the conversation around healthcare reform gains in intensity, the language and words become a bigger, more arrogant pile of rubble.

All this jargon delivers the strong message that regular folks out there—the patients and other consumers who healthcare reform players say they want to include in the discussion—are really outsiders.

Guilty as Charged

I wholeheartedly agree with Daphne. These terms are difficult to understand. The terminology creates a significant obstacle to patients participating in conversations about health care and health care reform.

Just this morning, I used a trio of these suspicious terms: the Patient-Centered Medical Home, the Connected Medical Home, and the Virtual Health Home. I announced on facebook that I was doing research on these things. Dr. Mimi couldn't resist commenting on my status update - something about things coming full circle when we start talking in plain terms.

Yeah, whatever! (just kidding)

What is wrong with us? What is wrong with a health care system that has gotten so far off track that we need to invent "new terms" to describe the things that should be taking place, but aren't? How do we describe health care where patient health actually matters? What do we call it when the patient and physician have a high-quality relationship?

Perhaps the problem is that virtually all of the meaning has been sucked out of the words health, health care, health care system, and arguably even health care reform? What words do we use to describe what was formerly known as health, health care, etc.? Where do we go from here?