Alliance to Defend Health Care

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Alliance to Defend Health Care

• Ann Eldridge Malone, RN, MSN
• Executive Director
• July 7, 06

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Overview

• Who we are
• What we do why
• American health care today
• Health Care in Massachusetts
• Universal health care what is it
• Chapter 58
• What you can do!

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Who we are

• Community-based non profit advocacy group
• Health care professionals others concerned with
  the state of our failing health care system
• Only organization in MA to represent the united
  voices of frontline health care workers
• Formed in 1997
• Call to Action For our patients, not for profit
  article published in JAMA 1997
• Drafted 10 Principles for Healthcare Practice and
  Organization, 1998

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Our Mission

• .. is to foster broad public dialogue and
  health policy reforms to achieve universal access
  to high quality, affordable health care for all.

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Broad base to build support through Partnerships

• State
• Collaborative relationships with others that
  include
• Multi-disciplinary health professionals
• Student groups
• Social justice organizations
• HC Amendment Campaign
• Health for All
• Community organizations?? Which?
• Healthcare-Now.org
• PNHP.org

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Broad base through Partnerships

• National
• Healthcare-Now.org
• UHCAN.org
• AARN.org
• PNHP.org

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The work we are doing

• Activities involve outreach, education, and
  advocacy for health care reform.
• www.defendhealth.org
• Email listserv alerts/bulletins on public forums,
  events, advocacy action etc.
• Health Care Amendment Campaign
• Chapter 58 legislation
• MNA work on safe RN staffing levels
• Research
• Professional Satisfaction survey of MDs, RNs, and
  SWs.
• Study of Safe Nurse Staffing Levels

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Why we do what we do

• We believe
• Health care is a fundamental human right
• Delivery of health care should be guided by
  science and compassion
• Health care should not be treated as a commodity
  to be traded in the commercial marketplace

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We are dedicated to.

• A reformed health care system that
• meets the needs of patients communities
• supports health professionals in providing high
  quality care
• provides equal access to affordable, quality
  health care

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Our Guiding PrinciplesFramework for
Decision-making

• Health Care broadly defined
• Access for all
• Patient choice
• Confidentiality
• Responsible health care organizations
• Responsible professionals patients
• Disclosure
• Quality peer review
• Research training
• Simplicity clarity

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I. Health Care Broadly Defined

• Includes prevention, diagnosis, treatment and
  management of illness
• medical, surgical and mental(psycho-social?).
• Health promotion, rehabilitation, palliation
  are essential services.
• Health care is fundamentally based on personal,
  professional and trusting relationships between
  individuals seeking care and those who care for
  them.
• Health care organizations and institutions should
  exist primarily to improve the health of
  patients.

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II. Access

• Health care should be accessible to all
  regardless of employment, education, social,
  economic cultural or linguistic status.
• Financial, geographic, and organizational
  barriers should not limit access to care. 
• The ability to creatively and appropriately
  employ scientific and technologic innovations in
  the interests of patients should be facilitated
  and enhanced by health care organizations and
  institutions.

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• III. Choice
• Patients must have the right to choose their
  health care organizations and their clinicians
  within these organizations.
• IV. Confidentiality
• Personal medical information must be confidential
  accessible, in a timely fashion and with the
  patient's permission, only to those responsible
  for the patient's care and only in the patient's
  interest.

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V. Responsible health care organizations

• No profits made from caring for patients.
• Accountability to patients first.
• Saved resources by system efficiencies
  improvements should be reinvested in patient care
  and not returned to investors.
• Competition among health care organizations is
  helpful only when it improves the care of
  patients.

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VI. Responsible professionals patients

• As professionals and patients, we must
  responsibly allocate the finite resources
  available for health care.
• The legal, ethical and moral obligation of
  clinicians to provide care in accordance with the
  highest professional standards is fundamental.
• Those who take action to correct conditions that
  prevent safe practice or high quality patient
  care must not suffer discipline or dismissal for
  their actions.

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VII. Disclosure

• There should be full disclosure available to
  patients and the public of the financial
  arrangements between health professionals and
  health care organizations and between
  organizations and for-profit corporations.
• The licensure and job title of every person
  providing direct care should be clearly evident
  to patients and family.

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VIII. Quality Peer Review

• Health care should be subject to review by peers
  and the public. This includes easy access for
  patients and clinicians to expert and second
  opinions.

IX. Research and Training

• Research and professional training are essential
  to the long-term vitality of our health care
  system. Both require the explicit support of all
  health care organizations and local, state and
  federal governments.

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X. Simplicity and Clarity

• Health care should be delivered and paid for in
  the simplest fashion possible.
• Repetitive and complex paperwork, administrative
  delays, and confusing forms distract clinicians
  from the care of patients and are unnecessary
  barriers to the effective and efficient delivery
  of health care.