Mar 4, 2013, 9:00 AM, Posted by
Lori Melichar
We have announced our second Call for Proposals in the field of behavioral economics. We’re actively seeking ideas that will help us to better understand how to discourage the consumption of low-value health services — those that provide more harm than benefit or which provide only marginal health benefits. In addition to improving health outcomes, this knowledge could contribute to lowering health care costs for us all.
Behavioral economics is an area of study by which I’ve personally grown increasingly intrigued and in which the Foundation has recently begun to invest. We all know, for example, that we need to exercise, eat right and be actively engaged in our own health care. But we don’t always do what we know we should do; knowing the “right” decision to make does not guarantee that we make that decision. The goal of behavioral economics is to uncover insights that could enable people to make better — more “rational” — choices for their health.
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Jan 4, 2013, 12:36 PM, Posted by
Pioneer Blog Team
By Jan Walker, RN, MBA, and Suzanne Leveille, RN, PhD, of OpenNotes
This is cross-posted from ADVANCE Perspective: Nurses
As nurses, we've always been focused on the patient. Teaching patients about their health and advocating for patients are both incredibly important parts of the job. That's why we got involved with OpenNotes-an initiative that invites patients to review the visit notes written by their doctors, nurses, or other clinicians.
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Jan 3, 2013, 12:53 PM, Posted by
Al Shar
Before retiring, Al Shar, vice president and senior program officer, reflected on his time with Pioneer and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Along with a few others here, I’ve been on the Pioneer team since it began in 2003. What makes my case somewhat unique was that I didn’t have to be on the team. I had a “day job,” and no one asked or told me to join; I was there exclusively because I wanted to be. Looking back, what’s interesting about that is how little I, and others, understood about what Pioneer should be.
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Dec 27, 2012, 11:45 AM, Posted by
Brian C. Quinn
As New Year’s Eve approaches, let’s take a look at a few of Pioneering Ideas’ greatest hits of 2012 one last time.
We rang in 2012 with a post about an idea Steve Downs called simple and dangerous—OpenNotes, an experiment that has enabled patients to read their doctors’ medical notes. We believe OpenNotes has the potential to transform the way patients engage with health care professionals—and take charge of their health.
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Nov 16, 2012, 12:48 PM, Posted by
Mike Painter
I had the recent good fortune to attend an Institute of Medicine Roundtable workshop on the Promotion of Health Equity and the Elimination of Health Disparities called Leveraging Culture to Address Health Inequalities: Examples from Native Communities. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supported the November 14, 2012 Seattle event. The meeting was a gathering of American Indian, Alaska and Hawaiian Native health and health care leaders, all talking about health and culture. They told stories of resilient, strong, vibrant, conquered yet not vanquished people. Their tales were wondrous and sad—troubling, provocative, sometimes angry, often humorous.
One might think the IOM was doing a good, almost charitable, thing by shining some precious attention on these people. How nice for experts to listen politely to those stories of past cultures struggling against waves of current change. Well, it was a good thing—but not necessarily just for the natives. There was immense, quiet wisdom and power there—for everybody.
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Lori Melichar
