Gabe's updates -- ACP Chief of Strategy, leadership book club ...
Hi All,
Here are the top happenings in Medicine Forward this week.
Prior Auth project --
The prior auth project continues to gain momentum. This really hits the sweet spot of alignment of why we are here. We love how it brings together many important puzzle pieces. By selecting a narrow enough target (breast cancer drugs) it's possible to envision a meaningful win. I'm excited that we're zeroing in on an opportunity to take action to put the patient-physician relationship first. I'm also excited that this energizes our allies we've spoken with so far.
A reminder of our current goals:
1. Meet again next Monday at 4 CT / 5 ET
2. Exploring work that has been done historically on prior auth and learn from successes and failures
3. Brainstorming and reaching out to potential collaborators (patient advocates, other orgs, Glaucomflecken, Zdogg)
4. Developing a well orchestrated strategy that builds on itself with a series of campaigns on social media
5. Brainstorming hashtag ideas to link to the project: #endpriorauth #fixpriorauth #stopcaredenial #patientsb4priorauth .... what else?
ACP partnership --
Yesterday I had a really wonderful introductory conversation with Adrienne White-Faines, ACP's Chief Strategy Officer. We spoke about the aligned values of both of our organizations. She was 100% on board with the importance of keeping a laser focus on restoring the patient-physician relationship. She described us as "the disruptive innovator" who has a unique opportunity to lead the way to change in our healthcare system. That is both flattering and a big responsibility. In fact, it reminds me why I know I have to keep showing up. No one is coming to rescue us, and I believe it's imperative that we continue to lean into the challenge of how hard it is to change the status quo.
Adrienne's challenge to us was to find the first five issues that get us fired up, and in her words, "then let's hit it!" I was inspired that ACP is also hungry for change. We reviewed the prior auth project, and she plans to help pitch that to ACP as the initiative to do first. We also talked about standing up for time with patients (especially in primary care). She agreed that this is also a great issue. The third topic we agreed on was the problem of the EHR, specifically the need to liberate us from being data entry clerks. Part of Adrienne's enthusiasm is that she sees a chance for this group to move faster than traditional organizations, and with a lot less constraints. It makes sense to me that this is a strength that we need to leverage at Medicine Forward.
It was so encouraging to meet Adrienne, and I couldn't be more hopeful for our Nov 1 meeting with ACP leaders!
Trainee leaders update --
First meeting with Dr. Cretien from Hopkins is scheduled for Nov 8. This is awesome! 👏👏👏
Mighty Network steering committee --
We had our second meeting of the steering committee yesterday. It continues to be an enthusiastic group. The outcome of the Zoom was the decision to quickly move from talking into doing some new experiments. The goal is to engage and serve our members so it's really valuable to be here. We've been brainstorming a "leadership book club" idea that is turning into our first microstrategy. Many books came up as candidates and the one that was chosen to start with first is "The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership". Omar Shaker has been part of a book club with this before and said it was transformational. He offered to lead the first group session and chapter discussion. We plan to do this over Zoom and to make sure it's a small and safe setting. The intention is to be positive, constructive, and kind (not a gripe session). This is for people who are ready to look inward for how we can be better leaders and a part of a movement for change. We will have 12 people max in our first pioneer group. Will also plan to do breakout rooms of three people so we can have a better chance of trust and vulnerability.
Please let me know directly if you'd like to be included in the book club. We start with Chapter 1 on Nov 15th at 8:30a PT / 11:30a ET.
Breen Foundation All-In Wellbeing First for Healthcare --
Oct 21 Medicine Forward was officially welcomed as a part of the project 🎉
Onward.
Thanks!
Gabe