President Trump failed to repeal the ACA because his administration had no workable replacement. Before dismantling the existing system by other means, with all the attendant risks to patients, it is incumbent on lawmakers to partner in the design of a healthcare system that can meet the needs of all Americans.
Language matters. Evidence matters. Transparency matters. In 2017, these may sound like political statements, but they are not intended to be. For those of us in the business of solving the world’s most intractable problems, they should be the fundamental tenets of our work.
Now that financial incentives to reduce healthcare spending and penalties for avoidable hospital readmissions have become part of the fabric of payment, healthcare systems are learning that care needs to be integrated in the community, and this starts with the caregivers.
Nothing can prepare you for what we lived through as a family, but when we learned about palliative care, we felt like we had learned healthcare’s secret handshake. We will be forever grateful to the extraordinary clinicians and therapists who worked with our family to give S and N their dignity, and us our sanity.
Ormond House 