We need to TALK.
Have you seen the movie Escape Fire: The Fight To Rescue American Healthcare? It’s a movie documentary that takes a sobering look at how healthcare works in America. This movie documentary has received numerous awards. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012. It also played at the Virginia Film Festival right here in Charlottesville and won the Audience Award for best Documentary Film. Escape: Fire The Fight To Rescue American Healthcare. It went on to air on CNN this past March. It is available on ITunes, Video On Demand, & DVD.
What in the world does a fire have to do with healthcare?
I know when people hear the title “Escape Fire”, the first response is “what does that have to do with health care?” The concept of Escape Fire comes from a technique that was discovered essentially out of pure desperation – where a firefighter named Wag Dodge started a fire to help prevent worsening damage from a raging forest fire that had gotten out of control. Who would have thought that the way to stop a forest fire would be to start a fire? From the movie perspective: An “Escape Fire” is a metaphor for an unconventional or counter-intuitive solution to a difficult and desperate problem.
It’s Broken
This movie takes a look at the ways that the healthcare system is broken and provides a platform for everyday people to talk about how we can improve healthcare in America. It is going to take everyone – doctors and other healthcare providers, administrators, policy makers and most important – PATIENTS to come to the table to talk about it so that we can formulate solutions that will make healthcare in America better – for ourselves and our children.
Heavy Hitters
The Charlottesville Free Clinic hosted a very successful Healthcare Community Conversation on Wednesday, April 10 at the African-American Heritage Center in the Jefferson School City Center in Charlottesville, VA. I moderated the discussion and got a lot of good perspectives and help from a very impressive panel of experts: Mr. Wendell Potter, a former Vice President at CIGNA Insurance Company who shared great wisdom regarding health policy and the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Lillian Peake, who has served as a public health director for the Virginia Department of Health since 2003 and provides management oversight to the five local health departments of the Thomas Jefferson Health District. Dr. Zach Bush, the President and Director of Clinical Affairs for the Revolution Health Center in Scottsville, Virginia, which takes a more holistic approach to health. Erika Viccelio who has been the Executive Director for the Charlottesville Free Clinic for the past ten years and serves on the leadership council for the Thomas Jefferson Health District – Community Health Assessment. And the MOST important participants in that community conversation were the members of the community who came out and expressed their views and perspectives on Healthcare.
A Fabulous Discussion
The messages that came forth included things like:
- The simple mechanisms for health and healing that go under utilized. Simple interventions like dietary changes and exercise that are completely capable of taking your health to the next level and even reversing disease.
- The anticipated difficulties that will come with full implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the importance of making sure that people are getting to and enrolled in the Health Insurance Exchange Plans.
- It appears that our Honorable Governor is still up in the air about whether Virginia will proceed with Medicaid Expansion that would give up to 400,000 Virginians access to healthcare.
- Changing the “Culture” is not likely to be successful as a “top down” process. It is going to take grassroots movements that start with individuals in order to for change to work.
- Yoga, meditation, prayer and a multitude of other modalities have been around for years as health promoting activities – where have YOU been?
- The Nursing profession has taken the lead in having the professional insight to the holistic changes that healthcare needs to embrace. They have been a positive FORCE to the promotion of the holistically healthy movement.
- This was a GREAT discussion, let’s continue to have ongoing community discussions on Healthcare!
Communication is Key
One of the best facilitators of improvement is communication. I strongly encourage you to join the Conversation on healthcare.
