Put Your Fingers to Work

An important part of this blog is to keep the conversation going about health care.  As the American humorist James Thurber once said, "It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers." 

Catholic Healthcare West has begun asking some tough questions about health care and we aren't so brash as to think we have all the answers.  We want you to contribute your viewpoint and share your insights.  If we can harness the collective brainpower of our communities' best and brightest, who knows what we might accomplish?

If there's a health care topic you'd like to discuss, please suggest one by emailing us at compassion@chw.edu.  It's the ultimate meritocracy.  The best ideas win.

Changing Minds Will Change the World

In keeping with the dialogue of a previous post, we found this:

"Like me, you'd like to see a renaissance occur in which 'we will stop destroying the planet.' But this renaissance is not going to occur among people who imagine that humans belong to a species that is separate from the rest of the living community (and who therefore think, for example, that the mass extinctions we are bringing about are sad but not really life-threatening). Until they know--with the same certainty that they know the earth is round--that humans are intimately bound up with (and completely dependent on) the rest of the living community, why would they stop destroying the planet? You can't force them to stop; you can't make them stop by passing laws or by shooting them. Once their minds are changed they WILL stop, just as back in the fifteenth century mariners stopped worrying about sailing off the edge of the earth."

--Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit

Compassion Can Change Your Brain

A new study out of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, finds that a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity may help you learn to be happy. Furthermore, that if you practice compassion, your brain chemistry changes:

This means that happiness and all of the healing properties associated with it can actually be learned through meditation. Meditation and guided imagery have been shown to facilitate healing primarily through the connection between the mind and body. The mind acts like a source of information and this information is carried to the tissues to the body via the nervous and endocrine systems.

Does Insurance Equal Care?

Two stories in the past week have illustrated how two concurrent philosophies about health care reform are playing out.

In one model, San Francisco's universal plan gives access to care to all the city's residents, but isn't an insurance program. In another, Massachusetts's program is a health insurance plan that covers everyone in the state.

Both have benefits, and challenges. The San Francisco model isn't portable (i.e., you can't get care in another city), so people may be less willing to give up their private insurance. Nonetheless, every resident in the city has access to care - both primary care and hospital care. The Massachusetts model has provided coverage to everyone in the state, but they're coming face-to-face with the very real challenge presented by the physician shortage - some care centers have waiting lists 150 people deep.

Time will tell which of the models will prove the most effective (indeed both may). But the greater philosophical question is one worth contemplating: Is it better to use the broad coverage option offered by Massachusetts or to utilize a smaller, neighborhood-style approach like San Francisco's? Is it a "nationwide" program that will solve the crisis or a "tribal" one? 

Two Things to Strengthen Health Care

There are two things the government can do that would perceptibly strengthen health care in this country.

1. Stabilize Medicare: The U.S. government is the largest health insurer in the nation. When payments from the insurer covering more Americans than any other are constantly in flux it is impossible to stabilize costs in any other segment of the health care system.
2. Invest in Medical Education: There are simply not enough physicians, nurses, radiologists, lab technicians...the list goes on...to deliver timely and compassionate care to all in need. Physicians in particular have been moving to fee-based practices, where they can spend more time with fewer patients who are able to pay an annual fee. This works well for those who can afford it, but for those who can't there are now fewer doctors caring for more people.

President as Patient

A new exhibit in Pennsylvania explores the U.S. presidency and health care:

"When the President is the Patient" compares the public image of U.S. presidents with their private medical concerns. Based on the exhibit at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, it raises the political and ethical issue of how much the public should know about the chief executive's health. It asks the question "Do truths hidden from the public serve a greater good, or should we know everything?"

Charter for Compassion

This year's TED Award winner is Karen Armstrong, author of numerous books on Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. On thing that makes this award different from many others is that it grants the recipient a wish. One wish for changing the world. In Armstrong's case, she's asked for the creation of a Charter for Compassion.

You can keep up with the progress of this wish, or contribute to it, on this blog.

What's this have to do with health care? Not a lot. But it is emblematic of a growing trend. There is a shift in consciousness occurring. We're beginning to move, perhaps only incrementally, away from the "what's in it for me?" mentality to a "what is the compassionate thing to do?" mentality.

We're interested in how (or whether) you've seen this shift coming to life in your own community. Post a comment to this blog or email us.

Credit Compassion

A news story out of Pittsburgh features a hospital credit counselor's compassion:

Belinda Staffieri is a credit clerk at Monongahela Valley Hospital ... her work often requires her to help people who struggle to pay their medical bills. She offers them compassion and respect. "You're dealing with someone's pride," Staffieri said. "You're sharing their burden."

She sees her position there not as just a job, but rather "a commitment to the community in providing a spirit of caring in a respectful manner."

Losing the World's Wildlife

The world's biodiversity is shrinking:

The Living Planet Index monitors more than 1,400 species. From 1970 to 2005 the report shows an overall fall in population trends of 27%.

The declines are due to human activity such as habitat destruction, pollution, overexploitation such as fishing, the spread of invasive species and climate change.

Human beings are not separate from the rest of life on this planet. We are integrally part of it and dependent on it.

A Second Renaissance

A reader questions this post:

"It's not always necessary to render the existing model obsolete. It is the existing one that allows for future improvement. How can we have a successful future without the older existing models to build on or with? Too often we forget that wisdom is acquired by knowledge, and understanding of the past."

We don't disagree. The issue here is about whether fighting the existing reality will produce the changes we need, or whether it would be more fruitful to take what we've learned, the wisdom we've acquired within the current system, and create an entirely new model. Patchwork reforms haven't resulted in a system that works for people. The system in place now is not compassionate because in only gives some people access.

It may just take a second great Renaissance - a completely new way of seeing ourselves and our environment - to achieve a truly compassionate health care system that delivers high quality care to all who need it.