Achieving care: promoting alternatives to industrial healthcare

Abstract

We march toward industrial healthcare. With different intensities and speeds depending on the nature of each healthcare system, most countries exhibit features of industrialisation. Perhaps this is the case because industrial healthcare may represent the final common pathway for any system that becomes underfunded as a result of austerity or profit extraction. Industrial healthcare is cruel to those at the frontline. It displaces the language of care, which in turn affects how we think and decide. It is time to reframe the conversation, change the language and draw from the traditions of the caring sciences. By focusing on care, developing models for caring and learning based on the actions of people rather than on data, and developing data based on the problems of care rather than on the advancement of decontextualised knowledge, we can advance toward careful and kind care for all.