Guess who else is saying what HE wants: Don Berwick

Boy, social media is amazing. This just happened on Facebook.

(And, later tonight someone pointed out that it’s a 2005 article based on a 2003 speech! So I edited this post. For some reason people are circulating it again.)

An amazing development in my RFP quest, first pointed out yesterday by Nick Dawson; the link was shared by Giovanna Marsico from Paris:

I had no idea that Don Berwick, head of the IHI, has published in 2005 what HE wants from providers for an upcoming surgery, like I did! Except his is in the Annals of Internal Medicine http://www.annals.org/content/142/2/121.abstract.

Look what he says in the abstract:

My right knee will probably need to be replaced soon. This has given me the opportunity to define, in very personal terms, 5 specific dimensions of “total quality” that I will require from the medical institution that does my surgery and that every patient has the right to require of their encounters with the health care system.
– Don’t kill me (no needless deaths).
– Do help me, and don’t hurt me (no needless pain).
– Don’t make me feel helpless.
– Don’t keep me waiting.
– And don’t waste resources, mine or anyone else’s.

Given my requirements, it is not clear that any health care institution in the United States will want to take me on as a patient…”

The criteria I specified are different, but wow, good company to be in. (And the response I’m getting to my requests is pretty similar to his concern.)

So much for the people who are sneering at me about my having the gall to make requests of the U.S. healthcare system…