Heathcare issues continue to dominate top of mind awareness with daily newspaper headlines about reform weekly and even daily. Despite all of the wrangling on Capitol Hill, I believe patient care is the real issue at stake.

I recently participated in a conference for broadcasters at our local public television station. It brought together great leaders and minds, including the dean of a medical school, president of a hospital corporation, vice president of a large pharmaceutical company and representatives from national businesses. Unfortunately, insurance was not represented, which would have completed an area of great interest in this debate. Topics including how to produce a better outcome for patients, increase the quality in healthcare and improve the doctor patient relationship, were discussed at length.

Did we find answers and ideas? Sure. How can a consumer come up with a plan of action to take accountability for their own healthcare in this complex system with a lot of history?

This is my first blog related to my newest book, Sick of Doctors? Then do something about it! A Prescription for Patient Empowerment. After taking a personal interest in the healthcare system I spent five years researching, interviewing and reading. Then, at the age of 75, I started acting on what I learned to become a better patient. It’s working!

The book being released in Indiana this March 2010 guides readers how to navigate the healthcare system to have better outcomes.  It is my goal to help people become better-informed consumers of medical services.  Patient empowerment is a pre-requisite as we strive toward better doctor patient relationships to form a true partnership.

Anything less will defeat any efforts made to regulate the industry

I invite you to join me as I write about the ins and outs of healthcare I’ve discovered to become a better consumer in the system. Tell us your stories, too, by commenting on the regular blog posts.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 10:18 am and is filed under Uncategorized. 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.

Dr. Mehmet Oz is trustworthy, so when he says this is a tried-and-true plan for getting healthy, we know it is definitely worth pursuing.

He tells us that cancer doesn’t kill most of us but lack of exercise and a poor diet do.

The good news about that? We may not be in total control of all of our tiny little cells that run through our body, but we are in control of how much we exercise and what goes into our (more)

Is it possible to avoid disease? A Time Magazine special health report published in June 2009 contained this startling and scary statistic: 75 percent of our health care costs are due to chronic, preventable diseases. What’s more, according to the report, 40 percent of premature deaths in the U. S. are caused by lifestyle choices—smoking, poor eating habits and inactivity.

How can we change these numbers? Certainly not with more pills and procedures designed to fix what’s wrong. Cleveland Clinic’s CEO, (more)