The New Wave of Healthcare

Over one billion people in the world live with some form of disability, and according to the WHO, that number is dramatically increasing. Additionally, COVID-19 has been disproportionately hard on people with disability as they face increased risk of infection due to underlying medical conditions, congregate living settings, or systemic health and social inequities. In this episode, executive director of the Washington Patient Safety Coalition, Steve Levy, facilitates a conversation with Kim Connor, executive director of the Washington State Independent Living Council and Mark Leeper, executive director of the Disability Action Network Northwest. Both advocates describe the unique challenges facing people with disability in the US healthcare system using personal stories and statistics to offer insight into the way forward.

Welcome back to the New Wave of Healthcare! In 2021's first episode we catch up with Dr. Crystal Gail Rose Kong-Wong, board certified family medicine physician and associate director at the University of Washington's Neighborhood Clinic. Dr. Wong leads UW Neighborhood Clinic's digital health plan, which currently means pivoting the health system toward telehealth. Washington Patient Safety Coalition workgroup member and founder of GreyZone Health, Io Dolka, sat down with Dr. Wong to discuss bright spots and emerging needs for patients and providers in the recent shift toward telemedicine.

In this episode we interview someone who was recently diagnosed with COVID-19. Our interviewee walks us through the process of identifying symptoms, trying to get tested and diagnosed and what comes next once you have been diagnosed with COVID-19. She provides advice on what she wishes she knew before being diagnosed and what conversations we can have with loved ones to prepare.

Join us as we speak with entrepreneur and author, Robin Shapiro about her new book The Secret Language of Healthcare: How to Ask for the Care you Deserve. Listen as Robin discusses her background in health advocacy, inspiration for this book and what's next!

Robin's Bio: Robin has worked in health care-related public relations, public affairs, crisis management, marketing and advocacy work since 1988. She founded Health Advocacy Strategies and co-founded Health Perspectives Group LLC, an award-winning family of healthcare engagement and technology companies. It is through her work helping patients communicate their health care stories, goals and wishes that led her to co-found Allied Health Advocates in 2008, the first independent health advocacy company for patients wanting to hire a private advocate. Her visionary approach to engaging people in their health care led her to create companies, programs and a not-for-profit organization to ultimately support the idea of helping people with medical navigation and decision-making. She is co-founder and currently is the Board Chair of the Washington State Health Advocacy Association (WASHAA). She also serves on the Seattle University Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center Board. Robin holds two bachelor degrees: in Journalism and Political Science from the University of Missouri - Columbia. She also invests in and advises start-up companies, some of which are involved in healthcare.

In this episode, we speak to the co-founder of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) Paul Epner to get the skinny on the good, the bad, and the ugly of the diagnostic process and ways of using health IT and patient engagement to improve it, as well as health inequities and social determinants of health that can contribute to misdiagnosis and non-diagnosis, which we hope to expand on in future episodes. We also hear about the humble and surprisingly recent beginnings that led to the impressive current state of SIDM, what inspired its inception, and where it's headed in the future.

In this episode, we speak with a team from the University of Washington Medical Center to explore the question, how can large hospital systems offer care to its caregivers after an adverse event? The team shares their first-hand experience of an unexpected event with a patient and how a debriefing process as part of UWMC's new Care for the Caregiver program helped them to process and understand the event and build trust with other colleagues.