Treatment: Quantity or Quality?

Which is more preferred: quality or quantity of treatment options?

A delicate balance at times. Sometimes bigger is better, but sometimes less is more.

All kidding aside, no, not all. It would be too much!

Improving the quality of care

In science, there is a growing interest in qualitative research and studies to understand better how to care for people. Using indicators of success in more human experiential ways is gaining acceptance.

For instance, if someone asks how you are, you don’t rattle off a list of data and how it may include your current condition, do you? Accepting that some of us are keen to comprehend data and its worth in planning or measuring our efforts to promote policy changes that improve the quality of care and long-term health outcomes, we explore strategies to balance their importance.

It is notable to say that these two approaches overlap and are not as cut and dried as simply different. If I were to ask, "how long was it before you felt better with a hep C cure, and can you explain how you felt better?”

This is meant to gather data and experience, which can be broken down as qualitative and quantitative information that could be used in summary as part of a study. That study could affect policy or improve the knowledge that can be shared to support a hypothesis.

Inequalities in impacted populations, cultures, and care

If we only focus on stopping hep C transmission, we lose the benefits of screening, treatment, and being cured. What is the most important thing we need to see?

The answer to that question evokes a range of answers, and not everyone agrees.

This is not a surprise at all. Considering the disparities in people affected, cultures, and availability to care, there are varied opinions and truths or views.

Using one set of approaches is simple and may be easier to undertake, but does it not limit the possibilities?

People will always have different ideas and ways of getting to those ideas, and that's usually a good thing if they go into the work with an open mind and realize that there is no one right way to move forward. It's just as important to be open to and respectful of the differences in how we design and understand science and so many other things.

Holding rigid beliefs will not help anything or anyone.

It's OK to say who will be most affected and why, but that shouldn't be the end, should it?