Jim Conway, Senior VP at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and chairman of the new Partnership for Healthcare Excellence, as well as a member of the advisory committee to HCFA’s quality initiative, had an op-ed in today’s Boston Globe on the importance of educating and empowering consumers to become active participants in care for themselves and loved ones. He cites some compelling figures from the Partnership, including their finding that 1 in 5 MA adults has experienced a medical error and over 50% know someone who has, to make an important point:
It is time to make serious and lasting changes in the healthcare system and the consumer voice is needed to help make those changes. At HCFA, our Consumer Health Quality Council, consisting of individuals who have experienced poor quality care, is publicly advocating for improvements in care. We are pleased the Partnership and others are joining the effort to inform, empower and mobilize consumers around these vitally important issues.
Deb Wachenheim
Only final aim of healthcare is to achieve maximum number of Quality Adjsted Life Years (QALY). While this acheievd by the system delivering healthcare there si an aura of scientific mysticism created due to medical jargon. Everything that medical system does to the patient and has to have logic which can be easily understood by the patient. Also there is tremendous spending on technology, but less efforts on system simplification.