I had the great honor of meeting and chatting with former gov Dr. John Kitzhaber about the momentum needed to address the current health care system and create a new vision of healthy Americans.

The Archimedes Movement - Dr. Kitzhaber’s brainchild founded in 2005 - held its first annual membership conference this past Saturday (6/14/08). I was deeply impressed by the two addresses Kitzhaber gave at the conference. Not only was his style entertaining and humble, but the content was educational.

I learned, for example, that the current health care system was a solution to problems that arose from the ashes of World War Two. In the 60 years that have passed since, the solution is now the problem. The system was originally designed to address acute care and infectious disease. The old system is not flexible enough to accommodate current needs such as patient education, prevention, and management of chronic diseases.

One of the arguments Archimedes is challenging is over the funding of health and a health care system. They challenge us all to consider what we are buying with the trillions of dollars we spend each year. Do we want to continue buying a broken system or do we want to pay for healthier Americans?

I hope you consider joining the discussion by getting involved with Archimedes or a similar effort. We are all stake holders (whether we want to be or not) and “we can do better.”

Tags: Archimedes, Healthcare Reform, Kitzhaber

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 3:47 pm and is filed under New Developments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.