We have emphasized the importance of applying the knowledge you have acquired in this course to real life problems. Naturally, you're asking, what can I do? First, you need to ask, what interests me? What am I passionate about? You may be most interested in patient advocacy. And as we discussed, patients are the least powerful constituency in healthcare. Areas that many of you shared in your posts as important, needs included, education, patients and providers. Representation, helping patients to join improvement committees, taking their case to administrators and politicians. Patient harm due to preventable medical errors is another critical area of need. Campaigning for fair treatment of the unfortunate patients who suffered through no fault of their own. Those could include encouraging institutions to offer counseling and apology, root cause analysis, and restitution. Another campaign project could be improving transparency that would allow patients, consumers, to make the wise choices with regards to providers, procedures, tests and treatment. Finally, some patients with chronic diseases, or who have a specific preventable complication, may want to work to improve the care of a specific disease or to prevent a specific complication. Another area of focus could be helping to improve a specific system, working on time delays, other forms of waste, improving value and cost by developing value streams, reducing mistakes and workarounds by encouraging the use of PDSA cycles and reliability tools. Teamwork and communication are other areas where campaigning and applying the athletic principles I described could transform a health system, clinic or a ward. Another area of concern where continued effort is required is identifying and dealing with disruptive behavior. For those who are interested in patient advocacy, I recommend joining the Empowered Patient Coalition, EPC, founded by Julia Hallisy, a San Francisco dentist whose daughter suffered a serious surgical complication that resulted in amputation of her leg and who subsequently died of underlying cancer. This organization is a non-profit charitable organization and has existed for over ten years. EPC's goals include, partner with individuals, other advocates and consumer groups, give the public a stronger voice in all health decisions, enable a new level of collaboration by sharing of ideas and resources, and encourage the formation of powerful partnerships within the group. You an join for free through the EPC sponsored website address www.engagepatients.org. This organization can provide the resources to assist you in your patient advocacy project. The next question you are going to ask is, where will I conduct my campaign? A country or a state? Usually too ambitious, and this will require lobbying with politicians. A community? Another very ambitious campaign and will require recruitment of community leaders. A hospital, moderately ambitious but certainly achievable, and will require the support of administrators. A department? This is a more realistic goal and will require support from the chairman. A ward, a very realistic site that will require support of the head nurse. A clinic, business area, will require support of clinical administrators. Finally, you can work through a disease foundation or subspecialty organization, if your campaign is focusing on a specific disease. Next you're going to ask, how do I get started? Begin with one-on-one meetings, virtual or in person, to identify like-minded people. You can use social media for outreach depending on the location and focus of your campaign, or you can create your own website. Wherever you are planning to begin your campaign, it is critical to understand your environment. Who are the leaders? What about the culture? What resources are available? Next, create a leadership team whose role will be to agree on a specific goal, and that goal should be measurable, and create strategy and tactics with milestones. It is important to continually go to the balcony to assure your strategies are effective. PDSA cycles can help create the appropriate improvement plans. Whenever possible, be sure to line with those in charge before you begin your campaign. Finally, you must act and monitor your progress using objective measures. It will be important to celebrate and share your successes, to inspire those on the campaign to continue their efforts. Several of you have asked, how will we stay in touch, share our journeys and provide each other with guidance and advice? I have created a Facebook group, Fixing Healthcare Delivery, and the website will be on the landing page, as well as shown here. I'm hoping many of you will join our group and continue to work together. And please don't forget to take the final survey, because this will provide me with the feedback, game films, I require to improve this course. Finally, remember you can make a difference. As the Dalai Lama said, you can be the seeds of a better future. And never forget you are the future of healthcare delivery. Thank you very much.
