Patient-Based Medicine: a New Concept for Health Care Services

In Germany, evidence-base medicine (EbM) is increasingly used to shift influence on health care decision making from physicians to institutional actors and health care policy. This exclusive use of EbM as a political steering tool does not correspond with the reality in the actual health care setting. As demonstrated by a survey with prescribing physicians and their patients, EbM's practical role in day-to-day patient care is less clear. Results demonstrate that practicing physicians consider not only evidencebased information, but also patient-oriented criteria to achieve adequate patient care and compliance. Therefore, the concept of patientbased medicine, i.e. considering the results of evidence-based medicine assessment in combination with empirical judgment by prescribing physicians and their patients, is proposed as extension of current EbM practice in everyday patient treatment as well as for regulatory decision making regarding health care services.