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National Institute for Patient Rights |
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Protecting and Promoting Patient Rights |
National Institute for Patient Rightsand Donna Smith present: |
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GOOD HEALTH CARE – A RIGHT NOT A LUXURY:
NAVIGATING THE US HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
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Let a seasoned health care professional and a person ‘who has been there’ show you how to navigate change in the US health care “system”. |
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“Learn how to get the care you deserve when you need it.” |
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Dr. Mark E. Meaney President and CEO National Institute for Patient Rights |
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Donna Smith “SiCKO” Subject American Patients for Universal Health Care |
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National Institute for Patient Rights 6635 E 18th Ave. Denver, CO 80220
Phone: (303) 321-8600
E-mail: empowerpatients@
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For more information or to schedule a seminar contact: |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Health Care Ethicist and American ‘SiCKO’ team up to provide community education seminars
DENVER – It’s a matter of life and death, and you may not even see it coming. Unless you prepare yourself for the medical crisis you or someone you love will face, you may find yourself a victim of preventable medical error or worse. There is help out there for medical consumers and their caregivers, and it is coming from what may seem an odd couple.
It may look like an unlikely match-up, but a health care ethicist is teaming up with one of Michael Moore’s ‘SiCKO’ subjects to bring a message of empowerment and hope to patients, their families or caregivers, and those who will be patients in the future.
The ethicist brings ‘insider’ knowledge of the health care system from the ‘bedside to the boardroom’ and strategies for patient/caregiver navigation of the system, while the ‘SiCKO’ subject brings first-hand experience of how to navigate a ruptured system that is straining the national economy to the tune of more than 17 percent of the gross domestic product.
One decries a lack of coordination of care among specialists within the U.S. system, while the other shares the real-life experience of stopping half of her U.S. prescribed medications after having a more completely coordinated health care experience in another country.
Together, the team will offer seminars and workshops aimed at educating those who may want and even lobby for an overhauled system but who must in the meantime survive and receive quality health care amidst the chaos.
Dr. Mark Meaney, author of 3 Secrets Hospitals Don’t Want You to Know: How to Empower Patients, is the founder and chief executive of the National Institute for Patient Rights. His work focuses on both the clinical and organizational sides of health care, particularly on Advance Care Planning, vulnerable populations, organizational ethics and corporate compliance, morally managing medical error, medical information privacy and research ethics.
Donna Smith appeared in “SiCKO,” Michael Moore’s new film, testified before Congress about medical debt, financial crisis and bankruptcy, and authored numerous articles about health care issues and reform, and lives in Aurora, Colo., with her husband Larry. She is an advocate of universal health care and recently founded American Patients for Universal Health Care. Though fully insured but in serious financial trouble, she successfully negotiated the complexity of the health care system to secure the care that kept her husband alive through three heart surgeries (including one botched job) and three trips to the Mayo Clinic. But even her tenacity and intelligence did not completely protect her own health care experience s from the broken realities.
This dynamic team shares the goal of seeing American patients and their families and friends receiving the very best of care even as the nation struggles with the political and economic pressures of a system gone mad.
Don’t miss them, your life or the life of someone you love may depend on knowing what these two vibrant Americans can teach us all. |