Part of the special contribution of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center’s approach to health reform is its insistence on bringing the patient perspective to the discussion. That’s why the Your Voice, New Vision trailer is in La Crosse today, giving patients the opportunity to share their stories and perspectives.
The luncheon program today also is beginning with an interactive “audience response” session, enabling the 160 attendees to go beyond being an audience, and to participate themselves. Each of the 22 tables also has a laptop that can be used to submit questions.
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being most optimistic), voters estimated the likelihood of our ability to effectively reform health care on a national level at 3.8, so they were somewhat pessimistic. Still they said it was highly important: 47 percent say there are major problems, with another 16 percent saying the situation is even worse, and 51 percent say we need major reform. Hopefully we will be able to post the results in their entirety soon after the luncheon. Now we’re getting ready to hear from Denis Cortese, M.D., president and CEO of Mayo Clinic.
