Touré McCluskey is the founder of OkCopay, a search engine for medical procedures whose mission is to provide consumers with objective information so they can make better choices about their health care. He is also a PopTech Social Innovation Fellow, a program that Pioneer co-sponsored. Touré’s opinions are not necessarily those of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

When you want to buy something at the store, you check the price tag. Why can’t it be this easy to figure out the cost of medical care?

It should be.

Consider, for a moment, the story of Tracy, an uninsured waitress trying to find out how much a dental procedure would cost before making an appointment. Calling providers didn’t help her, because they themselves didn’t know the prices; dealing with multiple insurance companies often makes it difficult for providers to know how much a procedure will actually cost a patient. As a result, Tracy was left with a surprisingly high bill she did not expect—and could not afford.

"TEDMED is the Burning Man for health aficionados," said Robin Hogen, RWJF's vice president for communications, one of several RWJF team members who attended the event in Washington, D.C., last week. The event brings together "public health advocates, clinicians, biomedical researchers, break-the-mold thinkers, prodigies, grateful patients and artists," Hogen said. TEDMED offers a unique opportunity to interact with a brilliant array of people who have one thing in common: finding new approaches to improving health and health care -- an objective that's near and dear to Pioneer's mission. It's not surprising, then, that a number of Pioneer grantees spoke at this year's event.

Here are a few moments from TEDMED 2013 that stood out for RWJF staff:

In this video, Helen Darling of The National Business Group on Health explains how employers will benefit from the Global Cardiovascular Risk (GCVR) score, a new quality improvement tool aimed at reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Earlier this year, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) embraced OpenNotes, enabling more than 1 million veterans who currently have access to the VA personal health record to view or download their own medical notes along with their health record information via the My HealtheVet Blue Button. In a recently published study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR), the VA's Susan Woods, MD, MPH, a longtime champion of open access and transparency, examined patients’ views and experiences with reading their health records, including clinical notes. The study is the first qualitative look at VA patients’ experiences viewing electronic records that included clinical notes and lab test results. Woods and her colleagues showed that viewing records and notes appeared to empower patients and increase their involvement in their own care but Woods says new communication skills will be needed to optimize the user experience.

In a recent interview, Woods discussed the power of open medical notes for patients and clinicians.   

Dr. Darwin Labarthe, Positive Health researcher and former director of the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), recently wrote an essay about the shift in the field of cardiology to focus on building cardiovascular health—beyond just preventing heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular events. Labarthe is part of an increasing number of experts in the health and health care communities who are focusing on health assets—strengths that can contribute to a healthier, longer life. This new framework is increasingly referred to as Positive Health, founded by Dr. Martin Seligman, Pioneer grantee and director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Below, Labarthe explains this shift, which he considers revolutionary, and places it in historical context.

By Darwin Labarthe, MD, MPH, PhD

Public health has seen three distinct revolutions. The first, more than a century ago, addressed communicable diseases. The second was heralded by the 1979 launch of Healthy People, the United States’ science-based initiative. Healthy People shifted the focus of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services) from its longstanding emphasis on disease prevention to health promotion, defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health.” Finally, in 1986, WHO’s Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion triggered what some consider the “wellness revolution,” emphasizing that health was “a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living.” In other words, it advanced the notion that health was about more than the absence of disease, or staying alive—it was about thriving.

In my essay, I wrote about a current shift in focus from cardiovascular disease to cardiovascular health. I would posit that this may portend a broader fourth revolution: a “positive health” revolution.