Honoring Dr. Leland R. Kaiser’s Legacy of Healing Health Care

January 18, 2019

If we are fortunate in our pursuit of meaningful work, we will find a mentor, a leader who will help us find our way. A guide who will let us know that no matter what is going on around us, we can put on the blinders of “purpose and mission” and move forward. I was

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7 Things You Can Do To Support Shared Decision-Making

September 22, 2017

This month, Mayo Clinic’s medical education journal published an article by Texas A&M Professor Leonard L. Berry and others about “Hostage Bargaining Syndrome” (HBS). HBS is what happens when the power differential between physicians and patients is perceived to be a barrier to shared decision-making. The only difference between patients and their caregivers – whether physicians,

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When the Healthcare System Has a Stroke

September 2, 2016

Not sure you heard, but one of the arteries in the heart of the U.S. healthcare system collapsed. Yup, a stroke. Blockages abound; both brain and heart. In addition, the system suffers from obesity and malnutrition.

Aetna is ending its participation in the state exchanges leaving millions abandoned without insurance, and with few options. Aetna is the largest insurer, but not the only one to exit the insurance exchanges.

Their reason? “Too many sick people.”

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Bhutan: Universal Healthcare and Gross National Happiness

March 22, 2016

Is healthcare (1) a human right, (2) a privilege, (3) a commodity, (4) a luxury, (5) a public utility, (6) a targeted market, (7) a service industry?  Is a sick person in need of healthcare (1) a patient, (2) a consumer, (3) a guest, (4) a user, (5) an advertising target?  Is excellence in patient

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Panic About Health Reform on the Day After Thanksgiving

December 6, 2013

Thanksgiving is celebrated as a day of gratitude. The day after Thanksgiving, something magical happens: Black Friday obliterates all gratitude and replaces it with blatant panic, fear, and urgency. This year, for some, it only took a few hours after turkey dinner to enter into the frightening abyss. Thanksgivingitus: a condition rampant among communities and

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Conversations With a 23-Year Old About Health Reform

November 22, 2013

So, healthcare reform is in our face, hitting our checkbooks, and so very confusing. However, never was the challenge as clear to me as today, after spending some time speaking with a young man and his mother while sharing a natural hot spring in Genoa, NV, where I was taking a little R&R. This is

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Chasing the Rainbow of Health Care Reform

November 8, 2013

If I think about how many rainbows I have seen in my life, none have been as stunning as the absolutely vivid and full one, end-to-end, that I saw in Reno a couple of years ago. It followed an amazing lightning storm that I am sure set off a couple of brush fires. But, in

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Transform 2013: A Brain Trust of Ideas for Healthcare

September 16, 2013

This past week my husband Dallas and I spoke at the Mayo Clinic’s Center for Innovation conference, Transform 2013. This was the third year of the conference, attended by over 900 people with many minds and ideas colliding in a wash of TED-style talks.

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Sweden Hits the Abyss of Private Healthcare & the Customer Model

July 5, 2013

Our final week prior to returning to the U.S. was spent in Stockholm, Sweden. My husband and business partner Dallas Smith, who speaks fluent Swedish and has spent many years traveling and performing in Sweden, often comments on its richness in social services, including a healthcare system that tends to the Swedish population from birth

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Caught Between the Healthcare Have & Have-Nots

May 31, 2013

My husband Dallas and I are in Israel this week, on our way to Jordan and Qatar. A conversation came up around the differences between the U.S. healthcare system and the Israeli healthcare system. Currently in the U.S., you need insurance to make a doctor’s appointment. In Israel, you need only to call to make

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