|
Penny Wheeler, MD We need to move to more patient-driven care, where patients are active participants in their care team and actively guide their care. Enabling consumers to compare meaningful measures of quality is key. Minnesota Community Measurement [a collaborative effort to measure health care outcomes] is off to a good start. |
|
Lynn Casey Providers and health plans would benefit from a unified message. It needs to be as simple as possible, even as complex differences are being worked out behind the message. The business community recently did this with transportation, using a set of facts about the impact of transportation on economic competitiveness as a foundation for the message. We also may need to align incentives to include more stick and less carrot—draw the line that says if you smoke, you’ll be paying in more ways than one. |
|
Sanne Magnan, MD More health care does not necessarily mean better health or [better] health care. We need to engage consumers to understand health choices—and how they relate to overall health care affordability and access. It also means empowering citizens on a personal level, to ask questions of their providers, and on a broader level—to advocate for a better system, including individual and community prevention. |
|
Winifred Wu We need to figure out how to get people to own their own health. They need to choose a healthier lifestyle and prevention activities. We will be in big trouble as a nation if we don’t stop the large number of people with metabolic syndrome from becoming full-fledged diabetics. Education is not enough—we need a cultural shift. Unfortunately, an entitlement mentality now exists. |
|
Kathy Welte As a society, the percentage of people who smoke has decreased significantly. Obesity needs to be next. The impact obesity-related illness has on individuals and the health care system is considerable. It needs to become socially unacceptable to be obese and to not exercise. Over time, people came to understand how bad smoking was for them. We focused on the issue in a variety of ways, made it expensive and inconvenient to smoke, and created opportunities to help people stop. Incentives to tackle our rising obesity rate need to be aligned at the societal level. |
|
Abir Sen The most promising opportunity is to create true consumers of health, not just consumers of health care. The current system allows consumers to make choices and tradeoffs about their care only when they are sick. We need to create an ecosystem that motivates people emotionally and financially to think about the everyday choices that impact their health. |
