Lown’s In Town

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH

Shannon Brownlee 2013 National Healthcare Innovation SummitI’ve been following the Lown Institute since shortly after chatting with Shannon Brownlee at the Healthcare Innovation Summit in Washington, D.C. in 2013 which ran concurrently with the ACO Summit.

As press covering the event for @ACOwatch, I asked Shannon for an interview as a result of watching her interview on Escape Fire the documentary about America’s healthcare ‘borg’.  Shannon graciously granted the interview below:

A side note, I was not able to publish the edited video of this exchange due to a sea of competing priorities for a start-up in the health reform and emerging transformational healthcare economy.

So when I saw Lown coming to town (i.e., San Diego), I dove back into the narrative that serves as both context and oxygen for the mission of this determined ‘value oriented’ entity:

Lown Institute mission

What’s both tragic yet durable in this continuing conversation is: it’s 2015 and we’re still talking about the ‘whack-a-mole’ problems associated with a ‘purchase order’ driven healthcare eco-system yet to find and promulgate a ‘systemic remedy’.

And the fact the ‘we kill our best’ certainly in metaphoric terms which applies to some of the credible voices in that ‘over treatment’ and imploding house of cards healthcare non system narrative – particularly as articulated by a national treasure who somehow didn’t rise to the level of ‘credentialed standing’ to be honored with the title ‘permanent’ Director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services – none other than Donald Berwick, MD (one of my ‘truth to power’ heroes).

To both frame and stage the narrative and seemingly intractable challenge, watch the trailer from the 2012 movie ‘Escape Fire’ which where I first learned of Shannon Brownlee:

Meanwhile, fast forward to 2015 and examine the flare at this ambitious yet well ‘staffed’ gathering:

Lown Institute Kickoff San Diego

The complete agenda for the conference is available here. Also you can follow the conference ‘digital dashboard’ via hashtag #Lown2015 for tweets, analytics and digital reach of the conference as well.

I plan on attending the event on Tuesday and Wednesday with my colleague and Health Innovation Media co-host, Douglas Goldstein aka @efuturist.

If you are faculty, organizer or underwiter of the conference and you want to spend some ‘camera time’ with us, ping me on twitter via @2healthguru, or drop me a line via gregg(at)healthinnovationmedia(dot)com.

Remember, it ‘takes a village’ to reform our healthcare borg.

Meanwhile join the Lown Institute and sign the ‘declaration’ for the ‘RightCare’ movement here.

 

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