The Problem List

Patients want partnership, shared decision making and quality engagements with their health system. In this episode, Dr. Elia Cole sits down with Gwen Darien, Chief Patient Engagement Officer at Patient Advocate Foundation and a four-time cancer survivor. They talk about agency in care, the patient and provider working as a team and what can be done to strengthen that connection. They also cover hospitality in healthcare and what it looks like when the system works well. Gwen closes with practical steps listeners can take to support improved healthcare in the US at the individual level, from voting to helping a neighbor get to an appointment.

Additional Resources

Patient Advocate Foundation: http://patientadvocate.org

Total Assist co-pay program: http://totalassist.org

National Academy of Medicine Video featuring Gwen Darien (quoted in the episode)

Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality

Daniel Dawes, The Political Determinants of Health

Aletha Maybank, William B. Jordan, Joneigh S. Khaldun, & Julia Caplan Health in All Policies

About the Guest

Gwen Darien is a longtime patient advocate who has played leadership roles in some of the country’s preeminent nonprofit organizations. As chief patient engagement officer at Patient Advocate Foundation, Darien leads programs that link PAF’s direct patient service programs to system change initiatives, patient education and advocacy to improve access to equitable, affordable, quality health care.

As a four-time cancer survivor herself, Darien champions placing patients at the center of health system change, whether it is for research, public policy or direct services.

Gwen is a member of the National Cancer Policy Forum of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and a member of National Academy of Medicine’s Clinicians’ Forum on AI. Darien has served as a speaker, moderator and panelist at many national conferences. She has been the keynote speaker for several PCORI Annual Meetings, chaired an invited session for the Academy Health Annual Meeting as well as served as a moderator and panelist for numerous NASEM workshops. Darien also writes about her experiences as an advocate and cancer survivor.
Follow Gwen on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/gwen-darien-34879ba

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Music licensed through Soundstripe.

Code: BGOOLUYQQUFUZCHU

What is the relationship between health and healthcare? In this series opener, host Dr. Elia Cole talks with Genya Shimkin, Associate Teaching Professor in Family Medicine at the University of Washington. Genya argues that health care is one piece of a much larger puzzle: roughly 80% of a person’s health comes from where they live, work, and learn. They cover the social determinants of health, the purpose of primary care, the case for universal coverage, and the trade-offs of a major system transition.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:39 Health vs. health care

05:04 Social determinants of health

08:59 The purpose of primary care

12:29 What a well-functioning system looks like

17:55 The case for universal health care

24:04 Trade-offs of a major transition

29:20 Bringing skeptics into the conversation

Correction

Genya quotes an “old saying” about not being single-issue voters because “we don’t live single-issue lives,” and attributes it to Angela Davis (while noting the possibility for error in this attribution). The quote is correctly attributed to writer and activist Audre Lorde: “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”

Additional Resources:

• Universal health coverage could save one trillion dollars and 114,000 lives every year (Yale School of Public Health)
• The Spirit Level at 15 (The Equality Trust)
• Urban Institute - Dr. Camara Jones Explains the Cliff of Good Health

About the Guest

Genya Shimkin (they/she) is an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Washington, working in the Department of Family Medicine and the Department of Health Systems and Population Health. For over 15 years, Genya has worked in LGBTQ+ health, from community-care networks and healthcare disparities to health system capacity building and LGBTQ+-centered curriculum. In 2012, they founded Q Card Project LLC to improve communication between LGBTQ+ youth and their care providers. The Q Card is now used in almost all 50 states, plus Canada, Jamaica, and the UK. Genya holds an MPH in Community-Oriented Public Health Practice from the University of Washington and a BA in Human Rights and Russian Studies from Bard College.

Learn more:https://gnsmph.com |https://qcardproject.com

Follow The Problem List

• Website:http://theproblemlist.com
• Apple Podcasts:Listen and subscribe
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Keywords: health vs. health care, social determinants of health, structural determinants of health, primary care, universal health care, health equity, health care reform, medical education costs, Medicare, VA, Affordable Care Act, family medicine, Genya Shimkin, Dr. Elia Cole, The Problem List

After years of thinking about this idea, I'm finally making it happen.

The Problem List podcast launches in October—because American healthcare deserves better conversations.

Here's what I believe: Our healthcare system isn't broken; it's perfectly designed to produce the results it achieves. So the real question becomes: How do we improve this system to deliver better outcomes?

That's what this podcast explores. It's for healthcare consumers asking "How did we get here?" and for curious minds who believe we can do better.

New episodes launch in October on YouTube and all podcast platforms: @TheProblemList

Let's examine the problem list together.